Stay Still
by on rooftops
Summary: The alphas wait until after New Year's. And then they take Stiles because—well, he's the human. — Stiles/Derek - for Hope


**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Teen Wolf_.  
**A/N: **This is all for Hope (_quantumesque_), who is the loveliest human being to ever exist, let's be real. Also, she gets it. See the author's note at the end for warnings.

Stay Still

The alphas spend six months tormenting Derek and the pack. They're pissing in Hale territory—leaving their mark on trees, on buildings, spray painted on roadways, injuring no one but scaring quite a few teenagers parked out near the preserve—and then they just disappear.

Scott tells Stiles and Lydia and Allison that they're gone. Says, "We can't smell them _anywhere_," and bites cheerfully into his sandwich. Stiles doesn't touch his own lunch. He doesn't get why the alphas left, or why they came in the first place, but he really doesn't like it.

That night he paces his bedroom and swears at the walls. When Derek appears in his window he doesn't jump.

"What the fuck was all that, then?" he asks. Derek's eyes are dark red, but his fingers aren't clawed when he fits them around Stiles's wrists and makes him stop moving. Stiles blinks up at him once, and then continues, "Why did they bother you for so long if they were just going to leave? Are you the mice to their cats? Because that's just—that's fucked up. They can't just play games with us. Not after how they treated Erica and Boyd. Not after fucking taunting you for so long."

Derek leans into Stiles's space. He presses his forehead against Stiles's and inhales. "Just shut up," he says, voice low and soft. "_Please_."

And, maybe, Stiles thinks, for almost the first time, maybe he could just be quiet. He pushes his forehead against Derek's harder, trying to intimate _more_, and Derek growls and kisses him.

It is hot and Derek's tongue tastes awful, it really really does, and the angle is a little off so it is a almost like rubbing his lower lip against sandpaper until Derek shifts and lets out an ungodly sound. Then Stiles doesn't care what it tastes like because he is all nerve endings and Derek is holding onto him like he could never imagine letting go.

Stiles scrubs himself raw after Derek leaves. He takes the longest shower of his life, until he is red all over and can't make out the stubble burn on his face. He touches his lips and tries to remind himself what he felt like a few hours earlier, just so livid, so off-the-walls angry. Now he feels a little adrift, out of control. He doesn't understand anything but he knows that everything is changing.

Scott sniffs at him the next day, says, "Jesus, you smell like you ate soap for breakfast," and shoves Stiles against a locker. Everything's fine.

:::

Stiles keeps expecting to wake up to a text from someone in the pack, telling him that the alphas have snuck in overnight and attacked. But he checks his phone in the morning and finds occasional texts from Scott or Allison or Boyd, asking him to stop by the coffee shop on the way to school, or reminding him of something they forgot at his place, or asking him the answer to a bit of trivia. Things seem almost normal.

But only almost, because (a) most of his best friends are werewolves, and even though that's been the case for a year, it is still _weird_ and (b) Derek still comes by and kisses him sometimes. And does more than kiss him. Neither of them says anything about it. It's just another thing on their list of things to do together, along with research and be generally crotchety in the other's general direction (well, Derek is crotchety. Stiles is mostly flail-y and sometimes annoying and very, very occasionally truly brilliant). So, sometimes Derek touches him and sometimes Stiles touches him back and that is not normal, not for them, but it is also not bad, or Stiles doesn't think it's bad, and he doesn't think Derek does, either, and so they keep kissing and touching and sometimes moving their bodies together until they're both gasping.

The first time they have sex it hurts. Stiles knew it would. Knew the minute he rearranged his expectations of his first time, admitted that maybe it would be with a man, and that maybe he would be spread open, and that probably it would hurt quite a lot.

They do it in Derek's shitty apartment downtown. Stiles goes there for this, because his mom died exactly five years ago, to the hour; because the alphas have been gone two months and nothing disastrous has happened; because Christmas is in five days and Stiles can think of a lot to be thankful for, but he is desperate and lonely and he thinks Derek is lonely too.

Derek answers the door and looks at him. "What are we doing?" he asks, which is a question they should have asked back at the beginning, but which doesn't do much good now.

"I have no fucking clue."

"What do you want?" Derek steps back and lets him in. His apartment is clean but dim, and the room smells a little musty, like mold.

"As much as we can have." It's a shitty answer and he's not even sure it's an honest one, but he knows that right now he wants sex, and he hopes it'll get him onto Derek's mattress.

Derek presses him against the wall, kisses into his mouth. "We can have this much."

They go into Derek's bedroom. Derek tries to be gentle, but Stiles has never even dreamed of a stretch and pain like this. It feels dirty and desperate and wrong when Derek comes inside him. He realizes that he cannot go back, that this is done, and he tries not to let Derek see how much that terrifies him. He is only seventeen and he wants to believe that the world has made him hard, but he still finds soft spots when he presses. His virginity was a soft spot.

Derek says things, as he pushes into Stiles, first with his slippery-wet fingers and then with his cock, and as pain edges around Stiles's insides he thinks about those things. About how Derek sounds like Stiles is everything that's important as he speaks into his skin. About how Stiles cannot possibly be what Derek wants, but how right now it is nice to believe that he is.

Derek leaves bruises in the shapes of hands on his hips, in the shape of his mouth on his shoulders. Stiles touches them in the shower the next day, pushes at them. They hurt. His skin is purple and his bones are hard. He feels emptied out.

He goes to school and no one looks at him any differently. He comes home and cooks an early dinner for his dad and they eat while discussing the chances of the high school basketball team—i.e., not great, it's lacking the werewolf contingent that makes the lacrosse team kick ass, although Stiles doesn't say that to his father—and then he goes up to his bedroom while his dad goes off to work. And he has had sex with Derek Hale and there are bruises on his skin that prove it and no one but him cares about it.

Derek appears at his window that night and says, "I think the alphas are back." Because they have the most _gorgeous _timing of any evil beings ever. Stiles would be pissed that Derek has come here to tell him, would be up in Derek's space and screaming because he has never felt so lonely, except that Derek drops a hand to his neck and leaves it there as he leans over Stiles's shoulder to look at his computer. "Can you pull up the bestiary?"

Stiles does. They read the entry on the alphas, then Derek crawls into Stiles's bed and Stiles joins him, and they fall asleep twisted together. He wakes up alone, but there's a note stuck to his computer. _Gone to let the others know about the alphas. Don't do anything stupid. We'll all work on it together._

:::

The alphas wait until after New Year's. And then they take Stiles because—well, he's the human.

He wakes to a nose pressed against his neck. It is followed by the barest pressure of werewolf fangs. The man attached to the long canines and the stubble and the nose inhales, sucks Stiles's skin between his teeth without biting down, and slides his tongue over what he's gathered. It's slippery and gross and makes Stiles feel sick, not the least because Derek was doing something similar just a week ago, and that made Stiles feel as if he has a hole inside him. The werewolf—not Derek, so not Derek—releases Stiles and backs away. Stiles blinks in the dim yellow light. Everything looks off.

"Stiles Stilinski," the man says. All of Stiles's nightmares are right there, in the way the man says his name. He has to be dreaming. "Human."

"I've been wondering what they're doing with you." A woman steps up beside the man, her hair a wild mess of red and her eyes barely a shade brighter.

"Giving us bait." A third werewolf comes forward and draws one long claw down Stiles's cheek. He breaks skin. Stiles feels the hurt and tastes the blood as it drips over his lip and he knows that he is not dreaming. He has never once been injured in a dream; his nightmares are always about other people's pain. And so he is actually tied to a metal folding chair in a cold room with five alpha werewolves around him, labeling him bait.

He doesn't struggle. He stares at the man leaning over him with blood on his claw and thinks about how he got here, but he can't remember a thing past leaving English class that afternoon, listening to Lydia rant about the treatment of Hester Prynne in _The Scarlet Letter_. Somehow he doesn't think they snatched him straight from the halls of his high school. Lydia would have noticed.

"But will Hale come? We don't want him." The fourth wolf is hanging back in the shadowed corner of the room, beside some metal filing cabinets, and Stiles can't quite make out her face.

"I don't think Derek will come," says the redhead. "He's notoriously bad at keeping track of his pack." This, Stiles admits, is mostly true. Derek has gotten better, but better is nowhere near good. But he also knows Derek will come. Derek kissed him two nights before, in the back of his Jeep, kissed him and left marks all over his chest and shoulders, and then he fucked him, and this time it left Stiles wanting more of him. So, he thinks Derek will come.

He starts talking. "If you're going to beat me up like you did Boyd and Erica, will you just get started? The suspense is literally painful."

The redhead glances at the dark-haired wolf sitting on the floor near Stiles's feet. She hasn't said a thing, but she glares up at him at the mention of Boyd and Erica. "Your little friends were a mistake. We should have killed them."

"Oh?" Stiles should not be surprised at the blunt nature of their intentions. Should not, but he is, because death being on the menu at any given time is still ridiculous. Even now, after he's killed, after he's suggested killing, after he's both cried and laughed over deaths he couldn't stop, still he is shocked by the way murder is normal in this new world he lives in.

"Beta wolves are liabilities, you imbecile." This woman should not be allowed to speak, he decides. She's rude and absurd, and staring at him with human eyes that nonetheless skim over his body, as if she wants to eat him.

"Why'd you let them live, then?" He directs his question to the redhead and waits while she rolls her lip between her teeth.

"Like I said," the crazy one leans forward from the floor, close enough that Stiles can see the leaves caught in her hair, imagines he can smell blood on her, "it was a mistake." She punctuates the sentence with a snap of human teeth, and Stiles presses his spine against the chair. He is blindingly terrified for the first time.

Her nostrils flare. "Scared little rabbit." She falls back on her heels, her lips curved in a close-mouthed smile. Stiles glances from her to the other wolves and back again, and then shuts his eyes. He cannot think of a thing to say. This is insane. This will kill his father. This will make Scott go crazy.

He feels another wolf moving closer, and the first man says, "We're just going to make you bleed a little. Draw your little friends in closer. Relax, it will hurt quite a bit."

Stiles passes out as claws strip his shirt and dig into his chest. He thinks he dies, even if it doesn't work that way.

:::

When he wakes up, Mrs. McCall is standing over him, looking right in his eyes, and saying things. But he can't hear her—or, he can, but he can't understand her. His ears are full.

He shakes his head. She sighs, a heave of her shoulders, pinches the bridge of her nose, and glances over at the door. He turns his head, the scratchy pillowcase catching against the gauze on his face and making him wince. His father is standing outside of the room. He's turned away from the door with his head is bowed. Something shakes loose in Stiles's ears, and he hears Mrs. McCall say, "I need to know whether you want me to tell him."

"How," Stiles coughs, catching up, "how are they explaining it?"

"A cult kidnapped you and cut you as part of a ritual," she says in a monotone, like it's not insane, like it's not close to the truth, and like that is not the most ridiculous part of all of this. She flinches. "I'm sorry, Stiles. I know this is not what you want to wake up to."

"I didn't really want to go unconscious in the first place, so the whole situation sucks rather a lot." He feels fuzzy in a medicated way, and he can barely tell where his body ends and the sheets begin. What he does feel hurts though, a dim and dull throb. "Don't tell my dad."

"Are you sure? You almost…you could have…you almost died, Stiles, and your dad wouldn't have known why."

"He wouldn't have known how to avenge me." Stiles tries to make it sound like a joke, but it comes out serious.

Mrs. McCall raises a shaking hand to her mouth and shuts her eyes. She breathes. Stiles watches her. "All right," she says. "All right. I'll get your dad back in here. Don't…don't drift off again, just yet."

But he does.

:::

"I'm sorry."

That's his dad's voice, but it sounds raw. It sounds like several gulps of whiskey and like three in the morning and like an unscheduled phone call to the uncle in Japan they haven't seen since before his mother died. It sounds like he's hurting.

Stiles wakes up enough to squint at him. The light is yellow but he thinks it's still early. He has no idea what day it is; his dad has the grey beginnings of a beard and Stiles's head feels a little clearer, the pain all over him a little sharper.

"About what?" The words come out raspy, his voice rough with disuse. His conversation with Mrs. McCall might have been days ago.

"This was…it was about…this was my fault, Stiles." His dad grabs his hand and holds on, and the pain of his grip is so minimal compared to the pain elsewhere that he manages to hide the wince.

"They were insane." He tries to sit up, but his muscles won't work. "This wasn't your fault."

"Why else would they kidnap you, though—why else would they torture you?"

_I was bait_, he thinks about saying. _They wanted to kill the beta werewolves who are my friends, _he considers. He says, "I'm just unlucky that way, I guess. Wrong place, wrong time."

His dad shakes his head. The movement makes Stiles's mind swim. He shuts his eyes.

"You're the Sheriff's kid, Stiles. They can't have just gotten you by chance."

He lifts a hand to cover his lips and mouths, _I smell like wolf and I am breakable_, and he feels a little less tense from the pressure of lying while full of pain medication. If his dad thinks anything of the strange movement, he doesn't mention it. Stiles keeps his eyes closed and says, "I don't think it was anything to do with you. Did you even have records on them?"

His dad sighs. He squeezes Stiles's hand again. "We can't find them."

Stiles's eyes snap open. "What do you mean you can't find them? How did I—why am I not dead, if you didn't find them?"

"Stiles, Jesus." His dad drops his hand and rubs his palms over his face, keeping his fingers tight over his eyes for a moment. Stiles thinks he may have just made his dad cry. But there are alpha wolves out there who want to kill his best friends simply because they are fucking _liabilities_, and Stiles almost died but only almost.

His dad drops his hands and his eyes are bright but his voice is steady as he tells Stiles, "Scott and Derek Hale found you in the woods. They got you to the road and called an ambulance. By the time we found the room where you'd been held, there was no sign of the cult or whatever—whoever did this to you."

Scott and Derek got him out, meaning that Scott and Derek and probably Jackson and Isaac and possibly, although not definitely, Erica and Boyd and Peter took care of the alphas. Stiles bites his lip, then regrets it. Just because no one hit him directly there does not mean that the skin doesn't hurt. "I didn't recognize them. I don't think they were from around here."

"Because you are so well-acquainted with the criminal population of Beacon Hills." His dad sighs and covers his face with his hands again. "Jesus, Stiles. What was Derek Hale doing, rescuing you?"

"You know we know each other." Stiles lets his eyes fall shut. This is a heavy lie, one that burns at him. He can feel the drug-driven sleep easing in around the edges of his tense wakefulness, and he hears his dad sigh again, but the sound is distant.

"You're going to explain it to me someday, how that is."

"Aren't you glad he was there, though?" Stiles mumbles.

"Would have been better if it had been Scott and Allison."

No it wouldn't have been, Stiles thinks, because if it had only been Scott and Allison then they would have been killed. The pack needs Derek to fight the alphas.

:::

Mrs. McCall stops giving him morphine. Well, actually, Dr. Ingalls stops allowing him to be given morphine. But Stiles whines at Mrs. McCall about it, because she is the only one who lingers long enough to tell him to shut up and get better. The other nurses just say, "No," and give him a look like he's a teenager well on his way to a drug addiction.

Which is just silly. Drugs are bad. Except when you have been cut open by fucking werewolves. Then drugs are very good. You might even call them necessary.

Unless you're in the medical profession; apparently, after a few days, morphine drips become pathways to addiction. Stiles has never wished he lived in the nineteenth century more. They handed out opioids like they were healthier than chocolate.

Stiles feels as if his brain has been taking a lot of wrong turns lately, but directing it back to linear thoughts brings him around to the fact that he was cut open by werewolves, and so he mostly allows it to wander.

Mrs. McCall tells him that he'll feel more normal in a few days, that he needs to let the morphine ease out of his system and he needs to allow his body to heal naturally. He thinks natural is a new word for pain and he wants to tell her that this is not all right, but Mrs. McCall gets a pale look around her mouth whenever he reminds her how he was injured, and so he sighs and gives in. Even though it is not fair.

She still shakes her head every day and says, "Maybe you should tell your dad, Stiles."

And he still shakes his head and says, "No, I really think I'd better not."

The third time they have this exchange, she hesitates in the doorway, disappointment and worry hardening her expression. "There were other marks on your body." She's looking at the foot of his bed, at his feet sticking up under the rough hospital blankets. "I didn't want to bring it up, because, well, you're not exactly my son. But there were marks other than the cuts. The doctors said they looked older, like they weren't from that night. But were you—? Or are you? Because Stiles, if you were…I can't just…if you need to talk, I'm here, but please, just…will you talk to your dad about this, at least?"

He can feel himself blush. Mrs. McCall shifts and lifts her gaze to his face. "It was totally consensual."

She sighs out a breath, and then narrows her eyes at him. "I would have thought Scott would have told me if you were dating someone."

"It's not…Scott doesn't know. It's not that serious."

"Are you being safe?"

He nods.

"Be careful, Stiles. And please talk to your father. I understand not telling him about the werewolves—it's not exactly your secret to share." She looks down at her hands, and Stiles knows she is afraid for Scott, terrified for how he will be treated if anyone else finds out, and knows that he can thank that fear for the fact that she hasn't told his dad already. "But this, your relationship, or whatever it is, is something that he should know about."

"I've talked to him," he lies. She looks at him like she pities him.

He shuts his eyes and pretends to be asleep. She doesn't say anything else.

:::

Scott and Lydia bring him his homework. "Allison would be here," Lydia tells him, dropping a stack of books on the end of his bed. He holds in the flinch. "But she got a detention with Harris for skipping Chemistry because she and Jackson went off to hunt the last of those assholes who did this to you."

She's speaking softly, but her eyes are hard and bright and he knows that Mrs. McCall is lingering outside, listening for something severe enough to push aside her concern for Scott and convince her to share all of their secrets with the Sheriff.

"Last asshole? I thought you got all of them?"

Lydia shakes her head. Scott grumbles, "Derek let one get away."

"Or you could say it was you who let her get away."

Stiles raises his eyebrows. This is clearly a frequently rehearsed conversation.

"Stiles was _my_ responsibility. Fighting was Derek's."

"You guys were fighting over who got to rescue me?" Stiles bites down on the wild urge to laugh. "It's just like a fairytale."

"You're no princess, Stilinski." Lydia reaches out and rubs his hair, which has gotten longer than he usually likes it. "But otherwise it was just the same. Except that they didn't coordinate and so one of the stupid wolves got away, and we still haven't found it."

The easy way Lydia includes herself in all of this fascinates Stiles. Lydia has always fascinated Stiles, but her acceptance of this madness, her willingness to work with the pack, her fantastic ability to create fire out of chemicals and to burn a hole in a person without flinching—these are qualities that would have driven him crazy with wanting her a year ago, and now they leave him amazed that she looks at him like she likes him and wants him to be all right.

"Which wolf? Which one?" He turns his attention to Scott. He's afraid, for the first time since he's been in the hospital, strangely sick with it.

"The older girl, the one with the darker hair."

Stiles's stomach heaves. "She's crazy. Don't let Allison and Jackson try to take her on. Derek needs to find her. It needs to be him."

"You still want him dead," Scott accuses, but Lydia is looking at him in consideration, her glossed lips rolled together in a thin shiny line.

"No, he wants everyone to live." Her voice is stern.

"I just don't want anyone to go insane." And there is something about that woman, something about the way she loves her wolfishness, revels in it, that gives Stiles vertigo. She reminds him of Peter, but crazier, less human. And Peter is an undead werewolf—there shouldn't be anything less human than him.

:::

The day before Stiles is scheduled to be discharged from the hospital, his dad comes in wringing rainwater from his baseball cap. "Winter," he mutters, making it sound like a fairly emphatic "Fuck."

"Is it still winter? It feels as if I've been in here for months, at least."

"Nearly." His dad collapses in his chair. "We need to talk about how it's going to go after you get out of here."

"How what's going to go?" Stiles pushes himself up to a sitting position, holding in the wince from the still-healing scratches along his ribs.

His dad rubs the back of his neck with one hand and rests the other on the sheet beside Stiles's legs. "Well, to begin." He looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else than here. It's a look Stiles is familiar with, and one that makes him feel twisty with guilt. "You've been lying in a hospital bed for two weeks, so you'll obviously need to take it easy for a while. No playing lacrosse with Scott, you come home straight after school, you will not have any late night rendezvous with your…_friends_."

It sounds suspiciously like his dad is grounding him. Stiles opens his mouth, but his dad continues talking.

"And after you're fully healed—once the doctor has cleared you for all activities—you will _still_ come home straight after school, unless you've told me exactly where you will be, and with whom. You will call me if you're going to be late. You will stop—and I mean this, Stiles—listening to the scanner. I will never see you at a crime scene again. I'm not asking for full disclosure," his mouth twists like he's eaten something bitter, "because I know you won't give me that. But I do want you to stop sneaking around. If you start up again, I'm putting you on full house arrest."

"But," Stiles begins, and his dad's hand fists on the sheet as he shakes his head.

"Until you get a call like the one I got, until you have someone telling you that your son has been attacked and is almost in pieces, you have no ground to stand on. You cannot fight this. And I'm sorry if it makes you angry with me, but I'd rather have you angry than dead."

"I wasn't in pieces," Stiles says, because there's always room to maneuver.

His dad drops his head. "Stiles, please."

Stiles is a horrible person. He knows this, just the way he knows that his mom loved him and that Scott would never have been bitten if it weren't for him and that he will never be all that good at lacrosse. He knows he is a horrible person because he has the potential to break his dad, and his dad is the one wholly good and sane person left in his life, and he still keeps pushing at the cracks he's made, like he wants to shatter him.

"Okay. I'm grounded until I'm eighteen." He holds up his hands, and the movement barely hurts at all.

"You just need to keep me informed," his dad sounds frustrated, like this isn't going at all how he imagined. Stiles isn't sure what he had been thinking, he never makes anything easy for anyone.

"Of course." Stiles has a pressure like panic building in his lungs, and he suddenly wants very badly to be out of this room and the hospital. He wants to be in his bedroom, with his window open and outside air blowing in. He wants to see Derek, and is ashamed by that want. It feels small and too dependent, something that he keeps stepping on in the hopes it will disappear. "Any chance I can get out of here tonight?"

His dad smiles in a half-broken way. "Mrs. McCall told me tomorrow, so tomorrow it will be."

"She's such a taskmaster."

His dad's smile gets a little less broken.

:::

His first night at home Stiles wakes up screaming. The noise is so high and it sounds so distant that at first he doesn't realize he's the one making it, and when he understands that it is actually his voice gone up several octaves, he cannot stop.

His dad is at his bedside, one hand on his shoulder and one on his head, and he is saying his name over and over again, like that's going to bring Stiles back to himself.

He can't breathe and he can't remember what he was dreaming of. He can barely hear his name over his screams, and he has never, not in all his life of weakness, felt anywhere near this vulnerable

His dad grabs him by both shoulders and shakes him, and that shouldn't work, it shouldn't work at all, but he is suddenly able to breathe again. He gasps for air and finally goes silent.

"Jesus, Stiles."

"Sorry," he manages, his voice coming out hoarse.

His dad sits down on the edge of his bed. "You don't need to be _sorry_. You can't help your nightmares."

"I don't remember what it was," Stiles says to fill the silence.

His dad looks at him like he's not sure if he believes him. "It doesn't matter. You're all right now."

His voice still sounds soft, the way it used to when Stiles would wake up from nightmares just after his mom died.

"Sure," Stiles agrees, pulling his pillow around so it's against the aching scratches on his stomach. "Of course I am."

His dad winces at the sarcasm, and reaches out a hand to press it against Stiles's forehead. "You'll be okay, kid."

His dad stays there until he manages to fake a convincing sleep. When he goes, he leaves Stiles's door cracked open, and a line of light falls through the opening from his dad's room. Neither of them falls asleep again.

:::

Derek texts him during his first full day at home. _Can I come over?_ His dad is at work, has promised he'll only be gone a few hours, and Stiles glances at the time on his cell phone before texting Derek back.

_Yes, but we'll only have a little while._

Derek appears minutes later. He looks so tired, as if he hasn't slept since Stiles was captured almost two weeks ago.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asks. Derek shakes his head.

"I should be asking you that question." He sits on the edge of Stiles's bed and rests a hand on his foot where it lies beneath the blankets.

Stiles waves his hand. "Eh, nothing a little time won't heal. You look dead."

"I've been trying to find that alpha," he says. "But it's like she's disappeared."

"What're you doing here? You should be sleeping."

"I wanted to see you, but I couldn't come to the hospital. Your dad was mad enough that I was there to find you." Derek won't meet his gaze. He's staring at where the stretched-out neck of his t-shirt falls a little off his collarbone, and he shuts his eyes briefly.

"I wouldn't have expected you to come see me there. Seriously, don't worry about it. Hospitals suck and my dad is a scary person. He barely let Scott in."

"But. It was my fault."

"No." Stiles speaks carefully. "No, Derek, it was not your fault. If they had known about us, they would never have taken me. They talked," he suppresses a shiver, "before I passed out, I remember them saying that they didn't want you to show up to rescue me. They wanted to—they wanted the betas to come, because betas are, like, liabilities or something. A beta kills an alpha to become an alpha—they wanted them gone. You're dangerous. If they'd suspected we were fucking," Derek winces at that, but Stiles doesn't slow, "they'd never have taken me."

"I wouldn't have left you there."

"I know that, I knew that. You didn't even leave Erica and Boyd there, and they wanted to go." Stiles reaches for Derek's hand, and then drops his to the blanket when Derek doesn't take it. "We're fine, Derek. I'm fine."

"I also," Derek looks down at his knees, pressed together so tightly it looks like it hurts. "We should really—"

"Stop?" Stiles says it softly. It's an awful thought. In the last two months he's come to rely on Derek. Derek makes him feel real, grounds him.

"Yeah." Derek looks up. "Not because—I still want. Just, you were hurt, and I don't know—"

"What's happening," Stiles supplies. "What's going to happen."

"Yeah."

"All right, then. We stop."

"Okay." Derek presses his hand to Stiles's shoulder before vaulting out of the window. Stiles feels a little emptier, but then, they took what they wanted until they couldn't take any more. It makes sense that it would end this way, so simply.

That's how it started, too.

:::

Stiles's dad drives him to school on his first day back. Stiles doesn't put up a fight, even though he is quite near to dying with the desire to get back in his Jeep. If this is something that comforts his dad, he figures it won't hurt him to comply. And besides, his body still hurts, so he's not sure how well shifting his Jeep would go over.

Stiles had broken their coffeemaker during one of his ill-conceived attempts to make coffee after a late-night fight with some fairies—fake fairies, it turned out, but still pretty fucking lethal—and they haven't replaced it yet, so he's looking at a pretty miserable coffeeless morning. He rubs his eyes as he slides into the passenger side of his dad's cruiser, and his dad glances at him.

"A coffee pit-stop before school?"

Stiles says, "Yes, _please_," through a yawn, and his dad follows him, head tilted back with the force of his tiredness as he pulls out into the street. They drive to the gas station in silence, and Stiles doesn't think his dad notices the Camaro on the other side of the parking lot. If he does notice, then he doesn't know what it means. Stiles feels an odd jitteriness begin in his joints.

Derek is getting himself an Icee. A blue one, which is Stiles's favorite, too.

The werewolf's head whips around when Stiles and his dad enter the store, and his cheeks flush a little. Stiles keeps his head down. He can still feel the ghost of Derek's hand on his shoulder, from when he said goodbye the night before. Hell, he can still feel Derek's lips on him. Which is definitely not a thought he should be having around his dad. Or Derek, for that matter, now.

Stiles's dad steers him towards the coffee, which is between Derek and his drink and the register.

"Sheriff," Derek says. He nods as he passes them. "Stiles." He coughs. "Good to see you're doing better."

"Mr. Hale." His dad tugs a cup from the stack. "Haven't seen you around lately." There's an odd accusation underlying his words, as if he, unlike Stiles, _had_ expected Derek to show up at the hospital.

"I've been busy." Derek waves a hand in the air. It's red with cold from his slushie and Stiles thinks the movement makes him look a little ridiculous, like he's inviting Stiles's dad to supply all the various ways in which he may have been busy. If his dad has taken up that invitation then his head is probably full of possible crimes that Derek could have committed in the time since Stiles's injury.

Stiles narrows his eyes at Derek. He still looks exhausted. He's got circles under his eyes and his lips are cracked, leaking blood. He's got wet spots from the rain on the front of his grey t-shirt and there're smudges of dirt on the cuffs of his leather jacket and the knees of his jeans. He looks like he's been digging graves.

"I'm sure," Stiles's dad says, and there's the weight his imaginings in that statement. Derek pales. Stiles has only ever seen him look this nervous around Peter, in the awkward early days of his uncle's return, back when Stiles and Lydia weren't the only ones who didn't trust him.

"I've been looking for a job," Derek explains, and one of his hands curls inside the sleeve of his jacket

Stiles's dad blinks, his hand tightening on Stiles's shoulder. "Doing what?" He sounds critical, and Stiles wants to step in, but for once his brain is giving him nothing. It feels pretty fucking odd, to not be able to babble enough to push through the awkwardness and get them out of there. Derek is splitting his gaze between Stiles and his dad, and for the moments it rests on Stiles, he feels like the older man is begging him to say something. But Stiles opens his mouth and finds that he can't.

Derek shrugs. "Anything. I never finished college, you know. And it's not the best market. And…well, my options are limited." Stiles's dad must know all of this, but his hand is still tight on Stiles's shoulder and Derek's skin is still pale beneath his stubble. This is the most uncomfortable situation Stiles has been in since he had a werewolf's claws in his stomach. This is worse than Derek saying they should stop. That, at least, was expected.

"Have you had any luck?" His dad sounds like he hopes he hasn't.

"Dad," Stiles finally grinds out, soft and low.

"Just friendly curiosity, son." His dad squeezes his shoulder.

Derek shrugs again. "I found a part-time gig as a host at the Carmello's over in Westerly."

The image of Derek working at a restaurant is incongruous. For all his undeniable attractiveness, most people would probably not feel welcomed to see him at the front of the dim, stone-floored building.

"They just told me I needed to smile more," Derek admits. He tries to make it sound like a joke. It's a miserable attempt, but Stiles manages to laugh anyway.

"You'll be fine," he says, which is possibly the most mundane thing he has ever said. Derek narrows his eyes, and his dad's hand doesn't move from his shoulder. "I mean, rescuing annoying teenagers and hosting go hand in hand, right?" He jerks his shoulder from beneath his dad's hand and takes a large cup from the stack, releasing the Columbian blend of coffee into it and smiling at Derek. "Thanks, by the way. I don't know if_anyone's_," the inflection is directed at his dad, but his dad doesn't even shift from beside him, "said that to you yet, but thank you for getting me out of there."

Derek shifts from one foot to the other. They should have said a lot more to each other the day before, because there is a lot that Stiles is trying to tell him right now, but he doesn't seem to get it. "I was just in the right place at the right time." He smiles tightly and glances at his watch-less wrist. "I should be going."

"Goodbye, Mr. Hale." His dad's voice sounds like a threat.

"Jesus," Stiles says, as soon as Derek is out of the store, although he can undoubtedly still hear him. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"Except that you accused him of murder twice." His dad reaches for the sugar, but Stiles hands him a lid before he can grab a packet and tugs on his sleeve to lead him toward the register.

"And I have admitted—more than twice—that I was wrong and he didn't kill anybody."Anybody who didn't deserve it, Stiles amends silently.

The girl behind the counter raises her eyebrows at him as she rings them up. Stiles shrugs at her.

"Look," his dad says, after a silence that stretches between the judgmental cashier and the parking lot, "Derek _seems_ guilty. And just because we can't prove it…he did bury half of his sister in his yard."

Stiles doesn't need to tell his dad that grief makes you crazy, but he does anyway, and his dad just looks at him.

"The way I see it," he finally says, reversing the car from the parking lot and accelerating at a rate that makes the engine growl, "you started getting hurt more frequently, you started lying more seriously, and you started getting into more trouble at around the same time that Derek Hale came back to town. Even if he is not guilty of murder—and maybe I should believe you, but I still find it hard to—but even if he never killed anyone, then he definitely has had a negative effect on you. And I am grateful that he saved you, but that doesn't change the fact that I blame him for whatever's happened to you over the last year."

Stiles can think of a thousand things to say to that, but they'll all just dig him a deeper hole, and so he doesn't say a thing.

:::

Apparently being captured and tortured by an alleged cult makes you a bit of a celebrity. At least, Stiles is the subject of more than a few whispered conversations that don't look as if they're all that unfriendly, and Jackson greets him with a slap to the back that is only a little harder than necessary while Danny tells him he's glad he's okay. Both Scott and Isaac hug him and manage to avoid making his ribs hurt, which demonstrates a spectacular awareness on their parts, and Allison and Lydia both kiss him on the cheek. Erica hipchecks him _gently_ and says, "We're pretty damn lucky, huh?" and Boyd ruffles his hair.

And then his teachers all tell him that they understand if he's not able to finish his work on time, even Harris, and the librarian gives him a hall pass, and it is all too much for Stiles to take in.

He is tempted to skip lunch, but all of his friends except for Danny and Jackson and Erica are in his lunch wave, and he's desperate to get some info out of them, so he sits at their usual table and tries to ignore the way people keep looking around at him.

Isaac smirks as he slides into the chair across from him. "I don't think I've ever heard the school so interested in anything."

"It'd be great if they could look elsewhere for their gossip," Stiles mutters.

"What? A year ago you'd have been dying to be this popular." Scott sits beside Isaac and Allison comes up behind Stiles, dropping a hand on his head.

"Not for," Stiles waves a hand down his body, "this, you know." There's a brief pause as Scott looks shamed and the others crowd their table, and then Stiles says, "I saw Derek yesterday and he said no one's had any luck with the alpha."

Allison shakes her head. "Jackson and I went looking for her, but he lost her scent pretty quickly and I couldn't find anything at all. Derek told us to give up, that he'd take over, so if you say he hasn't found her then no one has."

Boyd glares at the table. "It sucks that that's the one that got away. She seemed like the most dangerous."

"Batshit crazy," Stiles agrees.

"So not only is she sneaky, she's also insane. Brilliant." Lydia's voice is bright, like she's actually excited.

"Yeah, great." Stiles sounds decidedly less so.

:::

The sixth night that Stiles wakes up screaming, his dad suggests that he sees someone. He says it quietly, like the thought hasn't really finished forming in his mind before it's out in the dim air between them.

"Who?" Stiles bites out, because he wants his dad to stop looking at him like he's broken, but he can't imagine himself talking, actually talking, to anyone outside of his group of friends ever again.

His dad shakes his head and rests a hand over his eyes. "There's someone at school, isn't there? Haven't you met with her before? Ms…"

"Morrell," Stiles supplies. "She's okay." But a part of him thinks she knows too much. She knows about archaic Latin and she watched him hold his lacrosse stick like he was crazy with nerves. And he thinks she spoke to Lydia when Peter was possessingher, or whatever, and she sometimes gives him strange looks. But then, a lot of people give him strange looks, so maybe that shouldn't make him suspicious. He is probably thinking too much. "Yeah, I'll talk to her," he tells his dad

:::

Ms. Morrell gestures for Stiles to shut the door behind him. He tugs it a little harder than necessary, so it makes a satisfyingly loud noise as it closes. She doesn't even raise her eyebrows at him. It makes him nervous, how calm she looks.

"Have a seat, Mr. Stilinski."

Stiles does, his left knee jerking up and down as he waits for her to continue talking. She stares at her hands, spread over some lined paper on the desk in front of her, and rolls her lips between her teeth. She's exuding a stillness that interests Stiles. People aren't usually this capable of ignoring his outward exuberance.

He thinks she wants him to start talking.

He stays silent. For ten minutes, he does not say a thing. He keeps his leg moving and picks at the skin around his fingernails and chews on the inside of his cheek, but he stays silent.

As the tenth minute passes, Ms. Morrell lifts her chin and says, "I know Dr. Deaton." It sounds like a threat.

He waits a few heartbeats. "Are you _friends_ with Dr. Deaton?"

She smiles, close-lipped and not at all reassuring. "As much as people like us have friends, yes, I would consider him one of mine."

He stops moving, his mind running a rapid beat as he prompts, "People like us?"

"We have secrets. And they make us hard. We're…difficult to know."

Stiles wants to get up and leave. He wants to go to Derek and tell him they need to question this small woman with her knowledge of Latin and her secrets and her hard coolness. Stiles wants to get up and go, but he also wants answers, and he thinks that Ms. Morrell may be offering him more of those than he's gotten since Peter bit Scott.

"But Dr. Deaton knows those secrets." His voice sinks a few octaves; he speaks quietly. He hopes the wolves in the school aren't listening; he wants this conversation to be his, for right now.

"He knows some of them," she acknowledges, lowering her head to stare at her hands again, "some are too dangerous for even him to know. And he keeps things from me. Like you all," she waves one of her hands, somehow encompassing the pack and Stiles, "keep things from each other."

"Why are you telling me this, then?"

"This conversation is one of my secrets. I haven't cleared this with anyone, and it is probably a bad idea. But you have been hurt, and you refuse to take the bite," he opens his mouth to protest, maybe tell her that her counseling is shit, if her advice is for him to become inhuman, but she talks right over him. "You have been hurt, Mr. Stilinski, and if you want to remain human, then I am going to offer you the chance to learn how to protect yourself. And your pack, if you continue to associate with them."

Stiles's eyes go wide. "What do you mean?"

She sighs and stands. "For someone who is so smart in certain ways," her hand is on a thick manila folder, labeled with his name, "you lack something when it comes to seeing yourself."

"I don't think you're behaving like a counselor."

"No," she says, "but you won't complain, because you want to know what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is that you, like me, like Alan to some extent, have magical ability."

"You're a wizard, Harry?" Stiles says, heart beating so fast he doesn't think there's an actual pause between its pulses.

Ms. Morrell smiles at him. "If you will. Unfortunately, there is no magical school for you. No Hogwarts, no Brakebills, no wise uncle or teacher to guide you through anything. I am offering to help you, but I've never taught anyone magic before. It will be as much a learning experience for me as it will be for you, I'm afraid. But I am the only one around here who can help you, so." She shrugs as if to say, _pick your poison_.

Stiles sits on his hands. "What do you mean by magic, really? Are we talking _Charmed_? _Buffy_? Wiccans and rituals and books of shadows?"

She taps a pen against her mouth. "It's something different, Stiles. It's like," she looks at him, really stares, and he shifts, all the pain in his joints and body coming to the surface under her gaze. "You have a lot of magical power right now, but you don't recognize it. It manifests itself in different ways, probably most obviously in the way you can never sits still." Stiles looks down at his jittering knee and back up at her.

"Do I not have ADHD, then?" To be without that—it, the drugs and the condition of his brain, has been a part of him for most of his life. He feels oddly fond of the diagnosis, like without it he'd be less himself.

"I don't know. If you learn to harness your magic and can suddenly focus, then we will know that you don't. But it is very possible that you have both."

He releases a breath that he regrets to admit is relief. "So how do I that? Harness it, or whatever?"

"It takes concentration, knowledge of what you want to do. Say you're working on a computer, trying to get something to work, and you click around and eventually you get there. Magic is a lot like that. You know which things you can do, and you learn to use those to get where you actually want to be. Eventually it will come naturally to you." She glances at the closed blinds in the window of her office door, holds out her right hand, keeps her face calm and expressionless, and suddenly the mug holding her pencils is three inches off the desk.

"Levitation is easy." It drops back down. "It's always used as demonstration because of that, and because it looks impressive. But what you will be able to do, Stiles…it's incredible." Her face is hungry, like the wolves look around the full moon, and Stiles pushes his chair back an unconscious inch.

"Okay," he says, even as he feels his heartbeat quicken with fear at the animal-like way she's looking at him. "How do I start?"

"We'll start tomorrow. After school. How about, every Tuesday and Thursday for two hours? Will you be able to manage that?"

Stiles nods, even as he remembers his dad ordering him home. This is something—this is like the wolves, like the need of that. But this is more personal than even that is; Stiles must do this, obviously. You don't trade a rocket-ship for a car. If you can have the moon, you should take it.

"This will be counseling, right?"

Ms. Morrell nods, her smile small and tight. "Precisely."

"Okay," Stiles stands from the chair, the movement slowed by his injuries, "see you tomorrow, then?"

"After school," Ms. Morrell repeats, and Stiles returns to his pre-calc class.

He doesn't tell Scott about their conversation. He's not sure how to bring it up. How do you say, "Oh, hey, by the way, I'm basically a wizard," to someone? And Stiles still isn't sure if he believes her. He thinks that there's a possibility that tomorrow he'll walk into her office and be ambushed by alphas. Which really is a reason that he _should_ tell Scott. Or maybe Isaac, because Isaac is eons more discreet than Scott.

But Stiles doesn't know exactly what is going on, and he doesn't want Ms. Morrell to know that he's afraid of her, and he really wants to get this right without anyone else helping or interfering. He wants this to be his own secret; he wants it to be for himself. And so he keeps quiet, tells Scott the meeting went well and tells his dad that Ms. Morrell suggested regular sessions after school.

"It's that serious?" His dad sets down his cup of evening coffee and sets a suspicious gaze on Stiles.

"She says if I talk to her often at first, then the nightmares will have a chance of stopping."

His dad looks at him. "Do you really need that much time to talk, Stiles?" He sounds tired and sad. He still sounds suspicious, and it amazes Stiles that he's done so much damage to his relationship with his father that his dad would think that he's lying about _therapy_. And then he realizes that he _is_ lying about therapy, and that his dad has every reason to be suspicious, and guilt surges in his chest.

"You can call her and check, if you want to," is all he says. "She said two hours. I don't know."

"I'll take your word for it," his dad finally sighs, but it sounds more than sarcastic.

:::

Ms. Morrell hands him a paperclip. "Make this fly." She sits back in her chair, crosses her ankles, and watches him.

He stares at the paperclip. It is ordinary, rounded at both ends, a little bent out of shape from use, its wire end sticking up. He doesn't reach out to touch it, but he knows how it feels; knows how it tastes, too, has embarrassingly chewed on paperclips while writing essays. Hard feel, metallic taste, sharp ends and slippery when wet, but a flying paperclip—it seems ridiculous. It seems impossible.

He reminds himself that Scott is a werewolf and he stares, stares hard, at the ordinary paperclip which _will_ fly.

Stiles focuses on it. He hasn't thought this much about one thing since ever, probably. He thinks about the physicality of the paperclip. He imagines it zooming into the air. And then, because that is just so beyond absurd, he thinks about it wavering into the air, a little, just two inches of the desk. He thinks about that, about the way one end would wiggle up, and then the other, how it would take a few tries to get it off the surface, how it probably wouldn't lie horizontal in the air, but would rise at an angle, and then the paperclip is moving.

It is hovering, one end of it up, the other on the desk. Stiles blinks, looks up at Ms. Morrell, who is watching him, that small smile back on her lips. With his attention diverted, the paperclip falls back to the desk with a tiny soft sound, and he doesn't care. Because he did that. He made it move without touching it. Without even having an idea of _how_ to make it move.

"It's not so impossible," Ms. Morrell tells him, and no, he knows that now

"Try again?" he suggests, and she just nods.

By the end of their session, he's gotten the paperclip to hit the ceiling. Moving it sideways through the air escapes him, but he has time. He has time to make a paperclip fly. The thought strikes him as he's driving home, and he pulls to the side of the road and presses his forehead against his steering wheel, laughter wracking his body.

It is just absurd. This is insane, it really is, and he is so thrilled, weirdly thrilled, in this twisted way. Stiles is ecstatic—look at him, he is a _wizard_, or whatever, how could he not be happy?—but all along, throughout this whole mess, he's managed to pretend like he's normal. Like, yeah, his best friends are werewolves, but Stiles? He is a researcher. A scientist of the supernatural, maybe, but one hundred percent human.

Except not now. Except apparently he never was. He has always been—_this_—and that's different from everyone he knows, everyone except Derek and Peter maybe and Lydia, with her immunities. Maybe Jackson, too, but if he hadn't asked for the bite they never would have found out.

Stiles has not felt this alone in a long time. It is probably his fault; he could tell Scott, and Scott would make a joke out of it. Erica might start quoting Harry Potter at him regularly. She'd probably replace hello with _avada kedavra_, or something. Isaac would approve, he thinks, in a supportive and silent way. Lydia and Boyd would agree that it explains Stiles's weirdness, and Derek would go quiet and be upset that he didn't recognize the signs of magic or whatever before Ms. Morrell had. But eventually he'd come around, probably find ways for Stiles's magic to be useful.

So he could very easily stop feeling alone. Except that he is still scared of telling everyone, because what if they don't react the way he thinks they will? And he wants to hold this tight and close to him. Because it is his, only his, and if he keeps his mouth shut it could stay that way. It's not often that he has things on his own.

He wants to surprise everyone. He doesn't want his first trick to be a levitating pencil. He doesn't want his first trick to _be_ a trick. He sort of wants it to be a miracle.

Stiles finally calms down enough to pull off the shoulder and continue driving home, having come to the realization that whatever has changed in the last year, he still stupidly expects to become the hero.

That night he sits in his desk chair and spins his pencil around on the desk with magic while reading his American history textbook. When the pencil takes one turn off the edge of the desk he doesn't even look up from his book—barely even thinks—in order to levitate it back and begin its rotations again.

It's just a pencil, okay, but it is _awesome_.

:::

Derek texts him halfway through his second week back at school. Stiles is starting to feel a little more normal, back to his usual self, although doing magic seems to be making him increasingly tired. His stomach no longer hurts, and he considers that as much of an improvement as he could hope for.

Still, he's not thrilled to be getting back into the Werewolves Wars: Episode Who the Fuck Knows drama of his life. He looks at the message, sitting unopened on his phone, all throughout Pre-Calc. When he finally taps on it, as his class is filing into the hallway, his hand is shaking enough that reading the message is a bit of a challenge.

_Meet me by the bleachers after school. It'll only take a few minutes._

A large part of Stiles—a much larger part than he'd like to admit—wants this to be a booty text. But Derek wouldn't text him for that, he'd just show up at his window. And he is not the sort to break promises once they're made. And they made one. _Stop_.

As Stiles is crossing the winter-brown lacrosse field he sees Erica and Boyd coming hand in hand from the exit by the gym. He lifts his hand in greeting, and they return the gesture. He doesn't turn to meet them, though, and they don't speed up, so he reaches the bleachers, where Derek sits with his chin in his hands, before they do.

"Stiles." Derek's voice is soft. It starts an ache in Stiles's chest.

"Hey. How's it going?"

Derek gives a brief shrug, his leather jacket hitting up around his sharp jaw line before dropping. "All right," he says, as Boyd and Erica grow larger across the field, "started the job. It's okay."

Stiles pulls his flannel shirt around him a little tighter as a wind cuts from behind him, and Derek turns to his gaze towards him, nose wrinkled. "Are you…?" he drops off as the other two come to stand beside Stiles, Erica brushing against him.

"Am I what?" Stiles prompts. Derek shrugs, but his nose is still a little wrinkled as his gaze slips around the three of them.

"I am having trouble finding that last alpha," he says, and Stiles suppresses a shiver but he is not surprised.

"We know," Boyd mutters. He doesn't sound angry—he just sounds uncomfortable. Guilty. Like he's still not over the fact that they ran, or how they were treated by the alphas.

"Dude," Stiles leans against Erica, who shifts into Boyd. "That was _months_ ago. Derek was shit then. We were all shit then. No one blames you." He lets the _anymore_ go unsaid, and is relieved when Derek grunts in agreement.

"That was not your fault," Derek emphasizes. "And it may be an advantage now. I don't know enough about the alpha to find her. But the three of you together might be able to give me enough information to figure her out."

"You don't want to figure her out," is Stiles's immediate response. "She's nuts. She makes Peter look sane. Hell, she makes _Finstock_ look sane."

"I want to know how to find her." Derek speaks slowly, as if his seriousness will outweigh Stiles's brief expression of irreverent teenager-ness.

"Maybe." Stiles waves a hand, hitting Erica in the elbow. She doesn't move away. "Just maybe we should just let her be? If she comes back to get us, then, yeah, we fight her. But what if you all, like, broke her spirit or something?"

Boyd snorts and Derek raises his eyebrows. "I don't think her spirit could be broken, Stiles." Erica's voice is low, nearly a growl.

"She'll come back."

Stiles knows Derek is right, but he'd rather not think about her ever again. He'd definitely rather not share what little he knows about her. He certainly does not want to talk about her.

But Boyd begins, "She's crazy, like Stiles said. But she's also very smart. She thought they should kill us. Said death was the only way to make a message stick."

"That's not smart, that's evil," Stiles argues, although he supposes it's both.

Derek rubs his hand over his nose.

Erica asks, "Where do you go if you're both smart and evil and all your friends are dead?" and Derek looks at her like she's his savior or something, for turning the conversation back on track.

"Where indeed."

"Disneyland?" Stiles suggests. Derek growls, low in his throat, and Stiles shrugs. "She's not around here anymore, you'd smell her, right? And you're not about to chase her into Oregon or Nevada or something, are you? So why don't you just keep a regular patrol going for any sign of her and relax otherwise, because obviously we're not going to be able to figure out a way to get ahead of her. I'm pretty sure she eats people."

"You said that about me, in the beginning," Derek points out, sort of validly, but whatever.

"Yes, but you never tied me to a chair and watched me be cut open, did you?" And wow, his voice sounds raw and livid, and he can feel magic buzzing suddenly in his wrists, settling there because his hands are clenched. All three of the wolves stiffen, their shoulders drawing up like they're going to lunge, like they're prepared to attack something. "It's fine." He waves his hand around, like that will diffuse the tension. It just makes the buzzing feeling spread more evenly beneath his skin. "I mean, I'm good. I'm just saying, I have more evidence of her insanity than I ever did of yours, Derek."

Derek wrinkles his nose again. "Stiles," he begins, but Erica interrupts, her eyes narrowed as she glances from Stiles to Derek and back again.

"I hate to say it, but I think Stiles is right. No matter what we all know about this wolf, chances are she's doing something completely different from anything we could anticipate. I say we just try to be more aware of the territory."

"Right," Stiles says. "This was fun, but if I stay any longer, I'm going to be hauled into the station by my dad on my way home. See you lads later."

"Stiles," Derek repeats. It sounds like "goodbye," and also, "you're hiding something," so Stiles waves a hand to the first and ignores the second.

:::

Magic, it turns out, has its drawbacks. It is exhausting. That first week, Stiles had fallen asleep in Physics twice, and Scott had to kick him awake after lunch every day. And he's absolutely horrible at everything beyond the basic level of pencil maneuvering. After three weeks he pierces Ms. Morrell's lampshade with a pencil point and she repairs it with a sharp glance, the fibers weaving back together and pushing the pencil out as Stiles watches in fascinated frustration.

"How am I so bad at this?" he finally asks as he's swinging his bag over his shoulder after their eighth session—that is, after they've been at this an entire _month_, it's nearly March and Stiles can't even make humid air rain over Ms. Morrell's potted fern. He can't do anything.

"You are not bad at this." It's the first time Ms. Morrell has sounded anywhere near to reassuring.

"But I am slow." Stiles takes two steps towards the door.

"No, no, you are doing really well, Stiles. It took me ages to become as proficient at concrete manipulation as you are, and maybe you're not moving as quickly as you'd like to, but in a few months you will look back on this and you will realize that you were moving quickly."

"Well, that's comforting."

"This is not supposed to be easy. It's never simple to change."

"But," he gestures at himself, "this is who I am, isn't it?"

"This is who you are," she affirms, "but you are also a teenage boy with difficulty focusing and a thousand things weighing on you. You cannot—and should not—devote yourself to this entirely. You will get it all, eventually. You'll be better than me, certainly better than Deaton. You don't need to worry about this, Stiles. It's who you are, you're just still learning."

"I want my learning to hurry up."

"It will be worse if you rush it."

He wants to ask _what_ will be worse, get her to explain, but he thinks he knows. The exhaustion, she means, the way he feels an itch between his shoulder blades when he hasn't done any magic in a while—and sometimes, at bad times, it only takes an hour or two for that itch to appear—the way Derek's nose wrinkled when he looked at him the other day, like something was off.

"And if I don't rush it, I'll be fine?" Meaning that the exhaustion will stop, whatever's wrong about him will stop catching Derek's attention, he won't feel like he needs to do magic constantly to be okay.

"You'll be," her eyes are wide and a little distant, focused over his left shoulder, "_it _will be manageable."

She didn't really warn him, but he barely feels angry about that. It's not as if anything she said after telling him about his magic would have changed his mind.

"So I take my time." He continues to the door.

"Please." If he weren't used to straining his hearing to listen in on the hushed sounds of werewolf conversations, Stiles wouldn't have caught that. As it is, the word settles in his ears, dragging his discomfort with the way his magic has been making him feel to the foreground.

:::

"You smell funny," Erica tells him. It's the last Friday in March and she is walking Stiles to his Jeep. She's probably going to climb into the passenger's seat and beg him to drive her to Starbucks and then beg him to buy her some sort over overly-sweetened specialty drink, and Stiles will probably agree and then get one for himself, but right now she's just bumping her hand against his and telling him he smells weird. Which is nice and not at all out of the ordinary.

He lifts his arm to his nose and sniffs. "I don't smell anything."

"Like smoke, sort of. Have you started smoking?"

"Erica." He rolls his eyes.

"No, seriously." She reaches out and grabs his shoulder, draws him toward her, leans in and inhales. "You really do. More like campfire smoke than cigarette smoke, a little like electricity, too, but maybe that's the brand you're using? You don't need to lie to me, Stiles," she says more patiently. "I don't judge."

"I'm not lying," he protests.

"Well, whatever, you _smell_ like smoke." She taps on the passenger's side of his Jeep. "Starbucks?"

"Fine," he says, like it's a problem.

He sniffs at the sleeve of his jacket after he drops Erica off at her house. He doesn't smell anything. He wonders if his scent has changed since he started using his magic. If so, that would explain Derek's odd reaction to him the other week. But if so, then that means that his secret will not be his for much longer.

He creates flickers of lightning on his fingertips. It's a new thing he's learned, something he imagines will be much more useful than his pencil tricks, and it amazes him every time, the way the electricity webs out along his skin, illuminating the ridges of his fingerprints and feeling like nothing, really. Maybe a bare bit of warmth against his usually cold hands, but nothing tingly, nothing truly abnormal. It's so incredible, that having lightning on his hands could possibly be ordinary.

He sits on his bed and watches the electricity buzzing along. He doesn't want to share this. He wants to share this less than he had wanted to when he first found out. If he actually started smoking, would that smell block the smell of his magic? Are a heightened risk of cancer and nicotine stains worth a secret that will come out eventually? He thinks probably not. He thinks definitely not, but he's also got lighting in his fist, and he wants to keep it there.

There's a knock at the door and Stiles releases his magic, an ache beginning in his muscles as the lightning burns away. "Come in."

His dad crosses the room and sits in his computer chair. "I'm off tonight. Want to go out to eat?"

"Not to the diner."

His dad sighs, like he thought he was actually going to get away with that. "Fine, somewhere I can get something that has not been heavily flavored with grease."

"Sure." Stiles hops from his bed and passes his dad on his way to the pile of sweatshirts in the corner of his room.

His dad shifts in the chair and says, very slowly, "I saw Scott getting out of Derek Hale's car earlier tonight."

"Oh?" That surprises Stiles a little, because Scott doesn't usually hang around with Derek if Stiles isn't there, too, and if Stiles is there then there is probably something big and supernaturally bad going on, and he hasn't heard anything since talking with Derek and Boyd and Erica the other week.

"They were at McDonald's."

Stiles sniffs at his red sweatshirt and decides it's nearly clean enough to wear. He waves it around in the air a bit and says, "Is this some sort of ploy to get me to let you eat a burger? Because Scott and Derek were eating burgers?"

His dad snorts. "No. They looked like they were arguing about something."

Stiles pulls the newly-aired-out sweatshirt over his head, nearly getting lost in the shoulder region before managing to find the head hole. When he resurfaces, he raises his eyebrows at his dad. "That's not unusual. Scott and Derek argue a lot."

His dad rubs a hand over his face. "And I still want to know why you know this."

Stiles shoves his feet into his shoes and leaves his room without responding. They've discussed this to death.

He waits by the front door for his dad to join him, and they don't say anything as they get into the car and his dad begins driving. "I just worry, Stiles."

"You don't need to." It's a lie, maybe. But Stiles thinks Derek is the least dangerous thing in his life right now.

His dad's response is a sigh that moves his whole body. "How are your sessions with Ms. Morrell going?"

"Good."

"I haven't heard you wake up from nightmares recently?"

"I've been sleeping better." And that is true, because he's been so exhausted from the magic that he barely makes it to his bed before falling asleep. Some nights he doesn't even make it to his bed. Some nights he winds up on the floor, or at his desk, or, once, at the kitchen table with his face on his half-eaten burrito. Luckily his dad had been working nights, and so hadn't discovered Stiles in his cheese-y glory.

"Good. That's good."

Stiles nods. "Where are we going?"

His dad is driving toward the freeway entrance, and Stiles is very suspicious. "I'm craving Italian." And Stiles is more than suspicious.

"Dad," he says, voice low. And he knows he has no room to throw stones; he knows he is in the mother of all glass houses when he wants to tell his dad to keep out of this, to not push. But. But, this is Derek Hale. "He's probably not even working tonight."

"Maybe not. Doesn't matter, either way, because that is the best Italian restaurant around, and I really just want some pasta."

"I make good pasta." Stiles's voice is still lower than normal. He can feel an angry jitteriness starting in his joints, and there's a metallic taste in his mouth. This is unnatural, he thinks, something to do with his magic. This is off, too, because he doesn't get angry at his father. He gets sad about his father and angry at himself, but here his dad is, overstepping, getting himself involved in things he doesn't understand and—

And. Stiles imagines this is how his dad thinks about him, too. That he's getting tangled in things he doesn't understand. They're both moving around each other, and it's wrong, the way they're pulling blindfolds over each other's eyes.

The jitteriness fades to a manageable level and he presses his fingers into the seat beneath him. "Fine. But if you say that their gnocchi is better than my gnocchi we will have a problem."

"I won't order the gnocchi, then."

Derek is there. He is standing behind the stand at the entrance to the restaurant, wearing a white shirt and a tuxedo vest and looking stupidly attractive in a way that makes Stiles's stomach drop a little. He is smiling at one of the other employees, a pretty blonde woman, and it's almost a real smile. Stiles feels like he and his dad are encroaching on Derek's new near-normal life, and—shock of all shocks—he feels really really _bad_about that. He hopes his dad does, too.

Derek's head whips around as they step inside, and his expression undergoes a rapid shift. He frowns at the sight of Stiles's dad, and then he looks at Stiles and his nostrils flare. He is moving toward them too quickly, and Stiles's eyes widen before Derek gets a hold on himself and straightens his expression into something resembling normal.

"Good evening, Sheriff," he says. "Do you have a reservation?"

He is not looking at Stiles, even though Stiles is giving him his best apologetic expression. The blonde woman is watching them, her eyebrows raised and red lips pursed in thought. Stiles doesn't like that expression at all.

"I didn't think to call," Stiles's dad replies. "But it's just the two of us. Do you have a table?" He is looking over Derek's shoulder at the blonde, who flashes him a bright smile and leans over to look at the seating chart.

"We do! Derek, would you like to seat them?" She passes him two menus and says, "Table 34," in a quieter tone. Derek visibly shakes himself and smiles at them, that horrible fake smile that Stiles has seen more than a few times. It hasn't been directed at him in months, though, and it makes his heart sink.

"Right this way." He turns and Stiles follows after a moment, his dad close behind him.

"So, is it going all right here?" his dad asks as he slides into his chair.

"It's good," Derek grunts. He hands his dad a menu and then passes Stiles his, his eyes narrowed. He wrinkles his nose, and he clearly intends for Stiles to understand that he does not like his new smell.

Stiles stares at the list of pastas and tries to shrug without seeming too obvious

Derek says, "Enjoy your meal," and leaves.

"Think he's friendlier with people he doesn't know?"

"Maybe with people who haven't been instrumental in his arrest. And who are obviously here to check up on him.

"We used to come here," his dad points out. Which, okay, true.

"Only when we were celebrating something."

"Happy Friday?" his dad suggests, lifting his water glass. Stiles rolls his eyes.

When Derek passes their table to lead other customers to their seats, he brushes as close to Stiles's chair as he can without actually walking into him. The third time this happens, Stiles's dad interrupts his monologue on Greenberg and how much it will suck to work with him on their English presentation to say, "Stiles, I think your chair is blocking the aisle." Stiles glances after Derek, sees the tight line of his shoulders, and shifts his chair over the left side of the table.

He continues talking about Greenberg, and his dad goes back to his lasagna, a slight smirk on his face as Derek skirts their table on his way back to the front of the restaurant.

Halfway through his pizza, Stiles goes to the bathroom. He expects Derek to find him there, and so is almost relieved when Derek leans against the sink beside him as he washes his hands and says, "Erica said you've either been smoking or developed pyromaniac tendencies, but you don't smell like smoke, exactly."

Stiles reaches behind Derek to tug a paper towel from the dispenser. "What do I smell like?" he asks. Derek snatches his wrist and lifts it to his nose, keeping his eyes on Stiles's as he inhales. His hand is hot and Stiles feels that familiar tightening in his gut, the rapid beat of his heart undoubtedly telling Derek exactly what he's doing to him.

Derek doesn't react to Stiles's obvious attraction. Stiles badly wants him to. He wants what they had before the alphas captured him, even if it felt dirty and illegal and sometimes wrong. Derek releases Stiles's wrist before he can give in and press closer to him. "You smell like—like one of Lydia's firebombs mixed with some sort of plant. An herb of some sort." He leans forward, his eyes level with Stiles's and his lips pulled back in a snarl. "_What is it?_" he asks, low in his throat.

The door to the bathroom swings open, and Derek jerks back as if he's been hit. Stiles's dad stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, feet spread so he blocks the exit. He looks between the two of them. "Stiles tells me I shouldn't be worried," he says, almost conversationally, to Derek. "But you look awfully guilty. Were you just threatening my son?"

Stiles has seen his dad interrogate men and women before. He has been on the unhappy end of his father's nicer techniques a few times. He spent much of his childhood terrified of his father, and so he is familiar with the hard look in his dad's eyes, and he does not like that it is directed at Derek. Who is scary and a werewolf and everything, but he's also sort of lost.

"He wasn't."

"No?" His dad doesn't move. Doesn't even shift. Derek turns away from Stiles, to face his dad, and Stiles steps around him, stopping between the two of them and looking from one to the other. "I'm sorry, Stiles, I don't believe that."

"Dad, he wasn't." Stiles feels like a little kid again, like he should be tugging on his dad's arm and dragging him out of the restaurant.

"What was he doing, then?" He keeps his eyes on Derek, and Stiles shakes his head.

"Just, we were just talking. All right?" Stiles moves towards his dad, pushes at his shoulder. "Let's go, the food's getting cold."

His dad doesn't move. "Mr. Hale?"

Derek's mouth moves. His gaze is on Stiles, eyes a little shadowed. "I just had a question about the veterinary clinic. The one Scott works at? I'm thinking about adopting a dog."

Stiles shakes his head as his dad tilts his head back and laughs. "Oh, how I wish I could believe you. My life would be a lot simpler if I were gullible enough for that. But I am not. So," he steps inside the bathroom as someone comes up behind him, glances at the three of them, and hurries into a stall. "I am going to invite you to a very civilized meal at my house, tomorrow night, and you and Stiles are going to tell me what is going on. Because if you have not been threatening my son, then you are clearly involving him in something dangerous."

Derek looks panicked for a moment, and then he swallows and says, "Fine."

"Okay. Stiles," his dad gestures for him to follow, and when his back is turned Stiles looks at Derek for a long moment, and then, in the empty—or mostly empty—bathroom, he snaps his fingers, and a flicker of lightning illuminates the air above his fingertips. Derek stares at him, eyes burning red in surprise, and Stiles turns away, hurrying after his dad before he turns back around and sees Derek, half-wolfed out in the bathroom of his new job.

Stiles's dad doesn't try to make conversation as they pay their bill and drive home, and Stiles has no idea how to fill the silence. He holds his cell phone in his hand and waits for a text to arrive from Derek, a _what the fuck_ sort of text, but none does. He closes the door to his room when he gets home and releases some pent-up emotion in a spurt of fire sent upwards, and when that still leaves him feeling anxious and sick, throws himself onto his bed and pulls out his phone and texts Derek, _I did not intend for that to happen._

His response comes an hour later, in the form of Derek climbing through his window, still in his work uniform and breathing hard.

Derek doesn't move close to him, like he has in the past. He doesn't pin Stiles to the wall, doesn't try to force him to tell the truth by getting growly in his space. He leans back against the wall by Stiles's desk and crosses his arms. And waits.

Stiles sits up on his bed and stares at him. Silence is getting a little bit easier, now that he's able to release so much of his energy through magic.

Derek makes an annoyed-sounding noise, somewhere between a whine and a growl, and reaches out in mimicry of Stiles's earlier gesture, snapping his fingers. No lightning spurts from his hand. "What," he grinds out, "was that?"

Stiles rubs a hand over his nose. "That's what the smell is."

"Lightning?" Derek asks, incredulous.

"No, idiot." Stiles concentrates on Derek, lifts his hand and focuses his energy around Derek's ribs, masked by the white collared shirt and black vest, but still familiar to Stiles. Derek grunts as Stiles moves invisible feather-light pressure over his skin. "Magic."

Derek swallows, and backs as far against the wall as he can. "Stiles," he breathes, "stop." Stiles lowers his hand and releases the pressure.

Derek breathes. And breathes. His chest is heaving. Stiles draws his knees to his chin and watches him.

"How?" Derek asks.

Stiles shrugs. "Apparently I've always had it. Ms. Morrell—the counselor at the high school?—has been teaching me how to use it. She knows Deaton," he explains, because Derek's eyes are red again, and there's something predatory about the way he's leaning forward now.

"How long? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Since just after the alphas took me. And, I don't know." Stiles holds his hand out, and a film of flame covers it. He turns his hand slowly, watching as the air hazes, waves with a heat he cannot feel. "I wanted something for myself."

"Stiles." Derek sounds like he's choking on the word, and Stiles looks up to see Derek staring at his fiery skin, eyes dark and lips pulled back in anger. Or fear. Stiles lets the flames die.

"I don't—it's _mine_, Derek. I've never had something like this before."

"It's not like anyone could take it from you." Derek looks almost calm now that the flames are gone. Even so, he inches towards Stiles as if he is unsure of him.

Stiles holds out his hand, the one that was just on fire, and Derek reaches out hesitant fingertips to touch the skin. He stares at where his fingers lie over Stiles's knuckles. "You're not even warm."

"I thought. I thought it would be nice to not have to explain this to anyone."

"But you had to know that we'd find out eventually. That you couldn't keep this from me, from everyone."

"I thought maybe if it happened in some _useful_ way, then you would all be, I don't know, it sounds fucking lame, but awed? And I wanted it to myself while it was just, like, I can only do little things, you know. I think it's pretty cool, because, like, _magic_, but it doesn't actually do anyone any good, yet." He pulls his hand away again, brings the lightning back. "It doesn't even do me any good, really." He says it softly, but Derek is leaning into his space again, initial fear over the magic disintegrating in the face of Stiles's self-deprecating tone.

"What do you mean?" he growls.

Stiles leans forward so his forehead presses against Derek's. It's the closest they've come since the night before the alphas kidnapped him, and Derek fastens tense hands on his shoulders. "It's exhausting."

"Magic is?" Derek is right against him, all against him, suddenly. Pushing him back onto his bed. His feet are on the floor and the top of his head presses against the wall, and Derek is between his legs, folded over him. It is familiar and shocking, at once. "It hurts you?"

Stiles gasps as Derek's lips catch at the skin on his collarbone. "Turning into alpha form hurts you," he says, even as his hips thrust upwards, searching for Derek and friction. "We're not exactly in the business of being careful."

And he knows this is a terrible idea. He knows Derek does, too. They both called it off months ago because it was a terrible idea. But he hasn't been touched like this since the last time, and the last time left him desperate and wanting. Derek's hands slip under his sweatshirt and flannel shirt and t-shirt, and he pulls them all off in one sharp tug. His hands are hot over Stiles's skin. It is devastating and familiar.

Derek presses his thumb over the scars the wolves left on his skin. He leans down and runs his tongue over the raised lines, then scrapes his teeth down the thick tissue, leaving it slightly pink and warm. Stiles lifts his hands and press them into Derek's hair, trying to draw his mouth back to his.

"We shouldn't," Derek tells his hipbone, as he sucks the thin layer of skin there between his teeth.

"My dad," Stiles gasps, voice reedy and too high, "where is he?"

Derek jerks his head up, the space on Stiles's skin where his mouth had been breaking into goose bumps as the cool air hits it. "Downstairs, in the kitchen."

"Okay," Stiles says. "Okay." He reaches for Derek's chin and digs his blunt nails into the stubble-covered skin. "Okay."

But then Derek is pulling away. "You're," he says, voice low. "We really really cannot do this again, Stiles."

Stiles pounds his head back against the wall. "Why? I'm a part of this, I'm not going anywhere."

"It's not," Derek fastens a hand around Stiles's right wrist, pressing his forearm over Stiles's open palm, where he had been about to create fire again. "It's not about that, Stiles. I want—tomorrow we have to talk to your dad. I would rather not—and I think you would rather not—have to tell him about this, too."

"But it's already happened." Stiles tugs his hand from beneath Derek's arm and sits up, looking down at Derek's kiss-reddened mouth, his pupils still blown where he kneels between Stiles's legs. He looks filthy. Stiles feels insane.

Derek stands up. "It's not going to happen again." He moves back to lean against the wall. Stiles throws himself back on his bed and kicks a leg up, not caring that he is being petulant.

"This isn't fair, Derek."

"What are we going to tell your father tomorrow, Stiles?"

And that is also unfair. Because with Derek's mouth all over him Stiles can forget that the reason his father is downstairs in the kitchen is because he is probably going through a whole host of reasons that could explain their interaction earlier that evening. But with Derek across the room asking the worst question in the world that whole issue becomes impossible to ignore.

"Can we just—" Stiles scrubs a hand through his hair.

"We're telling him about werewolves." Derek says it like there's no chance of a way out. "But do you want to tell him about you, too?"

"We can't just," Stiles begins. "I mean, Scott needs to be here, too, if we tell him about you all."

"You can call Scott, and Jackson, and the others, if you want to. They can all be here, but even if they're not, _I'm_ telling him, Stiles. This is eating at you, and it is eating at your father. I've never seen a man who doesn't know what I am about to shoot me before tonight. If he decides to do it, I want him to have a good reason."

"He wasn't," Stiles protests, although he has never seen his father quite that shade of angry.

"I can tell when someone wants to kill me. Do you want the others there? And what about your magic?"

Stiles shakes his head. "I want the others there," because his dad will be less likely to attack Derek if there are witnesses, "and Mrs. McCall, too. And…do you think I should tell him?"

He feels young and lost and like there is not one right thing left in the world. "Do you want to tell him?" Derek asks, like it's that simple.

"No."

"Then don't." Derek shrugs. "But you should tell the others. Tell them tomorrow, before we talk to your father." He hesitates. "I'll fill Peter in. You don't need to do that."

"Derek," Stiles says. He stares at his hands. "Do you think—once things are calmer, that we could—?"

"I don't know," Derek growls. "I don't know."

"Okay." Stiles looks up at him, smiles as brightly as he can. "See you tomorrow, then."

"Yeah." Derek jumps out the window without looking back. It's awful.

:::

His dad leaves for work at eight the next morning, leaves a note for him by the broken coffeepot telling him to stay home and that he'll be back around five. Stiles looks at the note for a few minutes, then pulls out his phone and texts his friends.

They arrive in stages. Scott is first, and he looks nervous.

He sits at Stiles's kitchen table and plays with a napkin, and then he looks up at Stiles and bursts out, "My mom said something about you and some guy and she asked me if you were okay and, dude, I didn't know. But are you okay?"

Stiles jumps down from the counter where he had been sitting. He shakes his head. "I'm fine," he says. "It wasn't a big deal."

"But, Stiles, you're not even…I mean, I didn't even know you liked guys?"

Stiles waves his hand. "Really not a big deal, Scott."

"I think it is, though," Scott says. "Not that you do, but. Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"It didn't involve you." Stiles tries to keep his voice calm. He's tense, and he can feel his magic burning up under his skin. He wants to set a fire in his hand, or burn lightning into his retinas, but Scott is staring at him.

"It was Derek, wasn't it?"

"It doesn't matter, Scott."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Stiles repeats.

He and Scott stare at each other in silence for a minute, until Scott nods, a slight lowering of his head, and Allison and Jackson arrive, coming in laughing. They go silent as they catch the atmosphere in the kitchen, and Allison reaches out and touches warm fingers to Stiles's hand where it rests on the back of a chair. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, but it's small.

The others come together, slamming through Stiles's door like they own the place, and he relaxes a little when everyone's crowded into the kitchen, Lydia perched on his counter and the others seated around the table. Stiles leans against the fridge and looks at Erica. She looks back, eyes considering.

"Erica asked me the other day if I started smoking, because apparently I smell like I have."

"You really do, dude," Jackson says. "It's sort of disgusting."

"Stiles, did you call a pack meeting in order to announce that you're addicted to cigarettes? Because, sweetie, no one really cares."

He shakes his head at Lydia. "You wound me, Lydia, really you do. But, no, I have not started smoking. I…" It was easier to do this with Derek. His friends are all staring at him, waiting for him to tell them the truth, and he has a thousand lies crowding his tongue. He does not want to do this. He is afraid of rejection, he knows that; afraid that, even though they have put up with a lot of weird shit, even though five of them are fucking werewolves, he is terrified that this, his magic, who he is, will push them over the edge.

He holds out a shaking hand and stares at it. "I started seeing Ms. Morrell after the alpha attacks."

"Were you possessed by a freaky werewolf uncle, too?" Lydia asks, her voice brittle.

Stiles shakes his head. "I wasn't sleeping. But that wasn't, she's not exactly, she's not what she seems. She's friends with Deaton, sort of. I think they run in the same group."

"So she knows about us?" Isaac sounds terrified, glances toward the door like he's thinking of escaping.

"Yeah, but it's not like she's going to do anything with that knowledge." Scott shifts into Isaac's space, pressing against his shoulder, as Stiles continues. "She has secrets, too. We all have tons of blackmail material on each other."

"What are you talking about, Stiles?" Allison asks. She's looking at his outstretched hand, her teeth biting into her lower-lip. Jackson leans over into her space, whispers something to her.

Stiles shuts his eyes against the faces of his friends and sets his hand on fire again.

"Jesus fuck," Jackson says. Erica lets out a squeak. Stiles opens his eyes and lets the flames die as Scott and Isaac bang their heads together, both lunging to their feet at once, and Lydia slides off the counter, approaching him and reaching out to take his hand in hers. Allison bows her head, her eyes shut.

Lydia examines his hand, holds it up like she can find the fire in it. "Magic?" she asks him.

He nods.

"How?" Scott steps around the table, moves nearer.

"Ms. Morrell says I've always had it, I just didn't know how to use it. I'm still learning."

"My father," Allison swallows, then speaks louder, "he asked me about you, Stiles, and I said, nope, one hundred percent human, don't ever even look at him. And I'll try to keep it from him, but if you make it obvious, if you use it to fight—you're going to use it to fight, aren't you?" Stiles nods, _of course he is_. "My dad will probably want to talk to you. Magicians, mages, wizards, witches, whatever, they're of interest to the family. I'll keep it from him for as long as possible."

"Will they try to hunt me, too?" Stiles can't keep the bitterness from his voice, because she has said "of interest" and what the fuck is that.

"No." Allison looks at him, eyes narrowed, voice hard. "Of course not. They'll want to use you, like the want to use me and Lydia. Humans with talents and knowledge are dangerous if they're against the hunters. My dad will not be pleased with where you've put your allegiance. But there was never a question, for you. At least he won't have lost you, the way he did me."

Jackson rests a hand on her shoulder and Lydia moves to lean against Allison's side. Scott leans into Stiles's space, inhaling. "I smelled it, but I thought you…I don't know, after my mom talked to me, I thought you were trying to mask something else." He flushes. "What else are you keeping from us?"

"More importantly," Erica interrupts Scott's hurt-sounding questions, "why are you telling us now?"

"Two reasons. First, Derek found out yesterday." Scott bites his lip and lowers his chin, and Stiles lifts his shoulders. He can't help the Derek thing, and Scott doesn't get it now, but maybe he will eventually. "And second, my dad walked in on Derek and I talking yesterday, and he has invited Derek over to share the whole story with him tonight. I thought that it would go over better if you were all here."

"You're telling your dad." Jackson shifts forward a few inches. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I don't really have much of a choice. If you'd rather he not know about you we won't tell him." He looks around at his friends, all of whom are staring at him like he's gone crazy. "We'll just tell him about Derek. But, Scott, I'd really appreciate it if your mom were here. I think it would probably go over better."

"Are you going to tell him about you, too?" Scott asks.

"I wouldn't," Lydia interrupts. "Tell him about the others. That's more important, anyway. More of the big picture, you know?"

"I don't want to." Stiles is looking at Scott. "If you want me to, though, I will. It's only fair, if I'm telling him all your secrets."

"No." Erica shakes her head. "_We're_ telling him our secrets. You don't need to tell him anything."

Scott nods. It's slow. "I'll call my mom."

"Thank you." Stiles sticks his hands in his pockets. He can feel everyone watching him. "Anyone want to watch a movie? I can make popcorn."

"Personally," Boyd says, "I'd like to see more magic."

"Real popcorn, not that microwave stuff," Stiles offers.

"I'm with Boyd," Erica says.

Stiles levitates a pencil. And then hits Erica with it.

:::

Mrs. McCall gets there just before Derek does, and they all sit around the living room in silence, waiting for Stiles's dad.

"How are you going to do this?" Mrs. McCall asks, as they watch the clock on the wall click closer to five.

"I thought Derek could just transform," Stiles says, and Mrs. McCall stares at him until he continues, "That was a joke, really it was. I thought we'd just tell him."

"What, like, Dad, guess what, werewolves exist and your living room is full of them?" Jackson's tone is sarcastic. "That'll go over well."

Derek is sitting on the floor by the TV, and he glares at Jackson. "I don't really think there's a good way for this to go over."

"Hey dad, I've almost died a lot in the last year but werewolves have saved me every time?" Isaac suggests.

"Hey, not fair, Allison has saved me quite a bit, too. And Lydia."

Lydia pats his shoulder. "Also, you've taken all right care of yourself, and us, Stilinski."

"Right, so that won't work, either," Erica says. "Bad idea, Lahey."

"Right, okay." Stiles feels immensely overwhelmed. His living room is too crowded and he feels as if they're all waiting to attack his dad. "I'm going to go outside and I will talk to my dad when he gets here. If he needs more, then we'll give him more. But," he looks at Derek first, then at the rest of them, "is it okay if I'm the one to break the news to him?"

"Of course." Derek nods. The others all mumble things in agreement, although Jackson almost shakes his head before Allison digs her elbow into his side.

Mrs. McCall follows him to the door. She squeezes his shoulder and says, softly, "Your dad will be proud of you, Stiles. He'll be okay. You've done well, you know. Better than we would have done, if we had been faced with all of this."

He smiles at her, but it's small and tight. "Thanks," he mumbles, and then ducks his head and opens the door.

"And I'm sorry I told Scott," she says, softer still, but he knows the others can hear her. "It's just, I was worried about you, and I thought he should know."

"I'm fine," Stiles says again. It's almost true. He's not brokenhearted or anything. It isn't like Derek said, "I don't want you." He'd just said, "We can't," and Stiles gets that.

"Okay," Mrs. McCall says. "I just didn't want you to be…alone, in all of this."

Stiles understands the way mothers mother the motherless, but that doesn't mean he really _wants_ to be mothered. He hates the way mothers treat him sometimes. He and Mrs. McCall have never been that way, though. She has always treated him like the slightly obnoxious best friend of her son. But now everything's different, and he knows that finding out that the slightly obnoxious best friend of her son has also kept her son alive, because, oh by the way, he's a werewolf, has changed her perception of him. But he never wanted it to.

"I'm not alone." He glances over her shoulder to the living room. Because yes, everyone in that room has a person they will put before Stiles, but when Stiles asks them to come, they all do, even Jackson, and that is a significant and important thing.

Stiles sits on the front steps, presses his chin into his hands, and waits.

Headlights flash down the road periodically, and every time they do he stiffens, steadies himself in preparation for the big reveal, and then the cars pass him and they are not his father's, and he checks the time on his cell phone and digs his chin deeper into his hand, because his dad is late.

At five twenty he calls his dad. It rings through to his voicemail. At five forty he calls the station. Marie tells him, "He left at four thirty, Stiles, why? Is he not home yet?"

"No." Stiles turns to face the house and the door pushes outwards and his friends are there, Mrs. McCall leading them, surprisingly, and Derek just behind her. Derek doesn't hesitate before placing a hand on Stiles's shoulder, and Mrs. McCall takes the phone from his suddenly shaking hand.

"Maria? It's Melissa McCall. Is there any way to get a hold of the sheriff?"

Derek is breathing hot in Stiles's ear, and he focuses on that, on the pace of Derek's breaths against him, and tries not to think about the thoughtful noises Mrs. McCall is making into his phone. She finally hangs up, hands it back to him.

"They tried contacting him," she says, voice soft, "no one can reach him."

Stiles stares down unseeing at his phone. If he were better at this stupid magic thing, he thinks he could search for his dad. Send out signals or something, find him _somehow_.

Derek squeezes his shoulder, grip painful, and turns to face the pack. "All right, so Stiles and I and Erica and Scott, we are going to start at the police station. The rest of you, start here. We'll search the route between here and there, and if anyone finds a sign of him, contact the others." He looks at Mrs. McCall. "If I could ask you to stay here, and call us if he shows up?"

She nods, reaches out and takes Stiles's hand. "It'll be okay," she promises.

"Lydia," Derek says, as they all start off the porch. "Call Peter. Ask him to join you."

Lydia's eyes narrow.

"You don't trust him," Derek says, "I know that, but he trusts you. And we need that right now."

"You're lucky I like your dad, Stiles." She pulls out her phone.

"I'm driving." Derek reaches into Stiles's pocket and pulls out the keys to his Jeep. "Everyone in."

Stiles sits in the passenger seat and concentrates. If he could just _feel_. Ms. Morrell had told him that magic only magnifies what is already there. There's electricity in him, he can make lightning. There's water in the air, he can make it rain. The fire is in everything, or nothing, or maybe him—Morrell had seemed surprised at the ease with which he makes that. But he's _aware_, and so if he were able to magnify his awareness, then he could find his father.

There's a sudden pressure on his knee, and he glances down to see Derek's hand there, squeezing. "Don't wear yourself out," Derek says. "You might need that more when we find him. We are good at this part, the finding people thing."

Scott makes a sound behind them, but Erica just presses her hand to Stiles's shoulder from the seat behind him. "We will find him, Stiles."

"Maybe he just stopped for pizza or something," Stiles says, and even to his own ears it sounds horribly weak.

"Maybe," Scott offers. The others don't say a thing as Derek careens into the parking lot of the station and hops out.

"Okay," Derek points in the direction they came from. "look out for any signs of a car going off the road or something. If you all see or smell anything strange, even the least bit off, say something—it could be significant."

Just as they've started down the road, Stiles gets a text. His phone buzzes and he pulls it out, flicking at the screen until the text, not from his father, from an unknown number, appears. _Do you want your daddy?_

"Derek." Stiles stops, holds out the phone. Scott comes up behind him and leans over his shoulder, and Erica presses against his side to read the message. The three of them inhale at once as they finish the text.

"It's a trap," Derek growls.

"I fucking know it's a trap. That doesn't mean," Stiles starts typing back a message, fingers shaking over the screen, "that we're going to fall for it."

_Obviously_, he sends.

Almost immediately he receives a picture message, a map of a small portion of Beacon Hills, a red line snaking across it and ending at an old strip mall on the edge of town that's been abandoned for years.

"But if we follow that," Scott begins, but Erica makes a low shushing sound, and he stops talking.

Derek isn't as easily quailed. "Stiles, if we follow her instructions, we'll probably fall for her trap. It's usually the way it works. She may not even have him. She may be bluffing."

Stiles shrugs. "You don't need to come, but I'm going."

"Of course we're coming," Erica says. She wraps a hand around his forearm. "But we're assuming it's that alpha bitch. What if it's not?"

"Who else would it be?"

"Why is she targeting Stiles?"

"Because I'm easy. Let's go." Stiles gestures forward with both hands, and they all turn towards the Jeep.

"You're really not. If she wanted easy, she would have come for me," Scott says.

"God, why does everyone have such self esteem issues?" Erica crowds them toward the Jeep, an arm over each of their shoulders and the fingers of her right hand pressing against Derek's jacket as he brushes up against Stiles. "Everyone is awesome, Stiles's dad will be fine, if it is the alpha she's probably just looking for revenge, if it isn't they probably found out about Stiles's magic, now let's go kick some ass." Her voice wavers a bit as they reached the Jeep and Derek hands Stiles the keys, but she flashes a grin just the same as she climbs over into the back seat.

Derek mutters, "Take a left," and Stiles does, following his directions until they reach the empty parking lot of the strip mall. The windows are boarded up, weeds grow through the cracked concrete of the parking lot, and there are spray-painted words all over the brick sides of the building.

"The others should be here soon," Erica says, but Stiles is already out of the Jeep, crossing the parking lot and incredibly pissed off.

"Stiles," Derek calls, but he doesn't turn, just continues through the open door at the center of the building.

The walls are down inside, making it one long, narrow, gloomy room. There's a collection of shelves to his right, and when he turns left, he sees his dad. He's tied to a metal chair, a blue bandana tugged through his lips, knotted tight enough that the skin on his face is folded a little over the cloth. His eyes are shut, and there's the alpha, sitting in front of him, sheathing and unsheathing her claws. She doesn't look at Stiles as she speaks.

"Your son is here, Sheriff. Wasn't that nice of him, to stop by and see you?"

His dad makes a muffled noise behind the gag, and he opens his eyes so they're slits. The movement of his eyelids seems to exhaust him, but he keeps them open, fixed over the alpha's shoulder, staring straight at Stiles. Stiles can't read the expression, but he thinks a lot of it is fear and a lot of it is confusion. He hopes the fear is not directed at him.

Stiles doesn't move from his place by the door. He knows Derek and the others are on the other side, waiting, just in case there's a way for Stiles to talk them all out of this.

"Stiles Stilinski," she's still crouched, her claws sliding from her skin and sliding back in, and his dad's gaze drops to those and then fixes back on Stiles's face. "You've changed a bit since the last time I saw you."

"I'm not bleeding out anymore. Thanks for that, by the way." He feels magic burning up in him, and he hopes that he can gather enough of it to shatter her stupid hands and their claws.

She throws her head back and _laughs_. It's a terrifying sound. It shakes his bones. She quiets with a sign, and says softly, like her words are calm, "Well, I no longer have a pack, so I'd say we're even on that front. Thank you for setting your wolves on us. It was really fascinating to watch the way they fought to get to you out of there."

His dad hasn't looked away. Stiles can hear his own heart beating. "No one asked you to kidnap me. No one asked you to get involved with us at all."

She continues on like she hasn't heard him, "And then they let me get away because everyone was so concerned about how much blood you had lost. Like you couldn't have taken worse than that. They all think you're so weak, don't they?"

Stiles has his hands in fists. His palms feel electric. "They know I'm not weak."

"Do they?" she hums. "I don't know, Stiles. Seems to me they're worried about your safety. They're all out there now, you know. Waiting for you to fail so they can rip me to pieces."

"They _know_," he says, and he almost believes it. His dad's eyes have slid shut again. "I would have thought that you'd have learned your lesson after we killed your friends."

"One," she pivots on her heels, looking up at him with red eyes, and holds up a clawed index finger, "your pets killed my pack, not you, and two," a second finger goes up, "they were not my friends. They were a means to an end."

"And that end is, what? Killing two humans and being killed yourself?" He tries to keep his voice steady, but his dad looks _awful_, truly horrible, and he has never been so scared.

"You're not exactly human," and his dad's eyes open again, wide this time, his terrified gaze hitting Stiles in the chest, "and I don't really want to kill your dad. Or you, necessarily. Give me what I want, and I'll leave town and never come back."

"And what is that? What do you want?"

"I would like," she licks her lips, pointed teeth catching at her tongue, "I want Peter Hale."

Stiles exhales. He would love to give her Peter Hale. To give her Peter Hale would not hurt _him _at all. He hates Peter. It would get rid of two problems at once. He should not be hesitating; his father is tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth and his eyes half shut. He should not be hesitating.

But there are two things (more than two, if he's honest) wrong with this. The first: Despite everything, Derek loves his uncle. In some backwards, past-driven way, he cannot ignore the connection of their last name, not now that he's got a second chance at having a family. Not now that Peter has clawed his way back from the past through Lydia's maze of a mind. Not now that his uncle seems to be a little less monster, a little more family. And, whatever, Stiles thinks that's bullshit. But Derek loves his uncle. And Stiles cares about Derek, and he's not about to consign the man to a family-less existence, again. He gets family, even if he doesn't get Peter.

And then, there's his dad, tied to that chair, and he is looking at Stiles like he is disappointed in him. If there's one thing he's learned from his father, it is that you do not give in to the bad guys just because they seem to have the advantage. Especially if they seem to have the advantage. And does she have the advantage, really? Yes, she has his dad. But he has his friends, who are also werewolves.

And he has himself.

"What makes you think I have the power to get Peter for you?" He tries to sound cool and calculating, but his voice comes out more shaky and scared than anything.

"You are clever enough to get Peter for me." She grins, all teeth. "You know how to follow through."

"Why do you think I'll want to?"

His dad has only been tied there for two hours, at the most, and Stiles is half-convinced that his dad is acting, trying to make his situation look worse than it is so that the woman will not consider him a threat in any way; also, if he looks weak then he will be ignored and then he can probably start processing some of the revelations that have been thrown at him. But Stiles does not know this for sure; he does know that his dad's health is not the best and that he has been tied to a chair for two_ hours_ and that this alpha could have cut him somewhere that Stiles can't see and that that gag is really tight across his mouth.

He wants this over with. "Why do you think I'll give you Peter?" he asks again.

The wolf sighs. "We have something in common, Stiles. I'm counting on your natural sympathy."

Stiles manages a shattered-sounding laugh. "I am not what anyone would call naturally sympathetic."

"Oh," she shakes her head, threads of brown hair swaying, "I think you must be. You're hanging out with werewolves. You've got to be a little selfless to put up with wolf shit for so long."

"You're a wolf," he points out.

"I," she holds out her hands, stares at her claws, "did not _want_ to be a wolf. I just wanted to be healed. You get that, don't you? I wanted to be different again. And I am," she laughs, high and keening, almost, "but I am not different the way I thought I would be."

"You're insane."

"I am, I am, I am." She nods. "Show me what you can do."

He shakes his head. His dad's eyes open again, grey slivers on Stiles. "I don't know what you mean."

"Show me," she growls, inching forward, hungry gaze on his hands. "_Show me._"

The magic has been pulsing in his skin, and he wants to show her, wants to set his hands on fire and then wrap them in the tangles of her hair, light her up like he once did Peter.

But his dad is watching him.

"I can't do anything," he protests, a last attempt. "I'm just a human."

Her eyes glow red. "I just want to feel you use it. Just _do it_, just do it, or I will bite you."

Derek is there immediately, leaping around him and growling, half-crouched, and the other alpha jumps back, lands beside his father.

"I thought that would bring your puppy out of the woodwork." She rests her head against Stiles's dad's jean-clad thigh and Stiles feels the magic, which he had nearly released just an instant before, burn to the surface of his skin.

His hands are on fire, and the wolf howls, pitching her head back and arching her neck and throwing her whole body into the noise.

Stiles fights the surge of magic back and stares over Derek's shoulder at his dad. His dad, who is watching him like he is a criminal with a grenade in his hands.

"I used to be able to stop a heart with my mind," the wolf sighs, once she's exhausted her howl. Derek steps back, crowding Stiles towards the door, and Stiles steps to the side, away from him. Derek will not protect him from this. "I could just concentrate and hear it, the sound of a person's heartbeat, and then I would think, _stop_, and I'd make it happen. I'd listen to that silence, God, there's nothing so fascinating as a still-warm body that's gone silent, and I would seethe way I'd made the blood stop. And then I would leave. And it was so clean," she draws one of her claws out, and pushes herself upwards so she's facing Stiles's dad. Derek moves forward as she draws her claw down his cheek, draws blood, and his dad lets out a groan, "Blood is so messy. When I was myself I hated it. Now," she lifts the blood-shiny claw to her nose and inhales just as Derek lands on her, "it smells like honey," she says, her voice gone deep in a growl as she shifts.

The two alphas are a flurry of movement, and Stiles hears the others rush in behind him, but he doesn't even turn to look at them. He runs across the room and kneels beside his dad, fingers scrabbling at the knot on the bandana that is cutting through his mouth. It isn't moving, and he focuses, pushes air through the knots in a way he might have tried from across the room, if he hadn't been distracted by the crazy woman currently trying to rip his—his _something_—into pieces.

The rope tying his dad's hand and the bandana fall away at once, and Stiles doesn't look at his dad as he leans around to glare at the ropes around his ankles, shoving air into the spaces and widening the gaps in the knots so those fall off, too.

His dad makes a noise, like he's lost, and Stiles glances up and sees that his eyes are bloodshot and watery, and he stands and reaches for his dad's hands. "Please," Stiles murmurs, "let me get you out of here."

His dad looks at where Derek and the alpha are fighting, the betas circling them, crouching and growling, and his dad shakes his head. "We don't run."

"It's not running," Stiles mutters, but he helps his dad stand and keeps a hold on him, backing to the wall as his dad stares at everything unfolding in front of them. Allison and Lydia hurry over from the doorway, they've got knives in their hands, and Allison offers his dad a small smile as Lydia bumps her hand against his.

Stiles watches as the wolf gets a terrible-looking hold on Derek's _neck_, shit, and then the door bangs open _again_, and Peter Hale stands there, shadowy in the light filtering in behind him, surrounded by swirling dust and dirty. He says, "Hello, Alice," and everything stops for a moment.

Peter looks absurd standing there. He looks like an angel or a god, and nothing has ever been further from the truth, except that the alpha releases Derek and leaps over Scott, landing in her human form, still growling, lips still red with Derek's blood.

Derek lies where she left him, chest rising and falling as he heals himself, _slowly_, and Stiles stays beside his dad and Allison and Lydia, waiting for the alpha to go mad, to run at Peter and eviscerate him, and then eviscerate them all, because that's the way this seems to be going. He clenches his fist and allows magic to gather in the form of electricity there, and the alpha wolf turns to look at him, eyes dark now, and hungry.

"You don't understand yet," she says to Stiles. "Someday you will sell your soul for that, and you will be _grateful_ that you were able to. You will give up everyone in this room, even your dad, even that alpha, to keep your magic."

Derek growls where he lies. Stiles shakes his head. "I'll give it up, first."

Her laugh is the worst sound, cuts like a scream. "It is painful to lose it, like nothing you've ever known." She turns back to Peter and _whimpers_. "I had it cut out of me. I wanted to die, that's all I wanted. And I couldn't."

"Death is empty. At least you have something."

"_I _am empty. You haven't felt emptiness until you've lost what I have."

Derek makes a noise like a laugh as his skin weaves back together, and he comes to his feet. The alpha doesn't turn to look at him, but he speaks anyway, "We have lost _everything_."

She says to Peter, "You still have him, don't you? And he still has a pack. I barely have a heartbeat."

Stiles holds out his left hand, the one that isn't clenched around lightning, the one nearest Derek, and Derek drifts towards him, wraps a hand around his. Stiles's dad turns his attention from Peter and _Alice_, how incongruous, her having such an innocent name, and stares at them. Stiles tightens his grip.

"I made you burn out your magic," Peter says. "Years ago. What are you doing here now?"

"I thought becoming a werewolf would heal me. When that didn't work, I killed an alpha. I thought maybe this power," her eyes flash red, her teeth lengthen, her claws reappear, "would satisfy me. But it didn't. And then I thought, I'd kill you, and then I'd get another alpha to kill me. I would be at peace. It would be simple. And then I heard about the fire, and how everyone but the two youngest kids had died, or that's what they said, and I thought, maybe I'd kill the hunter who did you in, because I had wanted you."

Stiles opens his hand a little. Lightning flickers blue around his fingertips.

"And then I find out that your little nephew has killed her, and that you weren't dead but now you were, and _then_ the alpha pack I am with captures two kids who spout off about murderous lizards and suddenly your scent is everywhere again." She smiles. "And it seemed to me that you came back so I could finally have you. Have my revenge."

"You killed my wife, with that magic you're mourning. I believe we are even."

Alice laughs and bursts forward, all fur and fang and red eyes again. Derek releases Stiles's hand and moves forward, but Stiles is only a step behind him, right hand outstretched and lightning splintering in the air, connecting him with the wolf as her teeth are inches from Peter's too calm face.

She spasms in the air and lands on the ground, all shaking angles, and Stiles can feel her, feels her heartbeat quicken through the lightning coursing through his hand into her body. She transforms, human again, lips pale and pulled back, eyes blown open with the force of electricity. She stares at Stiles as he feels her body quake, as her heartbeat gives out at once. He feels her pain, and he feels her relief, and he releases the magic, or it releases him, and collapses.

Peter catches him, a hand at his waist, and Derek's hand comes over his neck, calming with an easy pressure.

They're holding him up, the two of them, and he is shaking. He stares at the body on the ground. Her death felt like a give, like when you pull a loose tooth out of your gums. Her death felt like almost nothing, but now he feels like he's rattling around inside of himself.

"Let him down," his dad's voice, shaky, his dad coming in front of the dead alpha, blocking her from view. "Let him down," he says again, and Derek and Peter ease him to the ground, Derek crouching and leaving a hand on his shoulder, but Peter backing off.

"Give him space," his dad demands, even though he himself leaning over Stiles, taking up all the air above him after Derek steps back.

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and his dad presses two fingers to his neck, feeling his pulse. The room is full of the sharp and fast breaths of all of his friends, everyone too worked up. His dad's wrist feels wet where it presses against Stiles's collarbone, he thinks the rope burn must have turned bloody.

"Jesus, Stiles," his dad says, then he's pressing his forehead into Stiles's shoulder, and crying into his t-shirt, and there's a noise from above and behind him, and then the sound of his friends and Peter making a collective exodus.

He lifts his shaking hand from the floor, the one that killed that alpha, and rests it between his dad's shoulder blades.

"I was going to tell you about the werewolves," he says, when he feels he can talk again, his eyes still closed. "I swear I was, today."

His dad tightens his fist in his t-shirt and makes a sound like a laugh. Stiles feels infinitely young and terribly old and he lifts his head a little so he can press his closed eyes into his dad's shoulder and let out a few awful, wracking sobs.

:::

They get home eventually. Mrs. McCall bandages his dad's wrists and cleans the cut on his face with antiseptic, she listens to Stiles's heart and says he's totally fine, which is a bit of an overstatement but is nice to hear nonetheless.

Stiles curls in his dad's armchair and his dad rests on the couch while Mrs. McCall sits in the old rocking chair that his mom got from her mom when Stiles was born, and they all stare in different directions and do not speak.

Stiles thinks the pack is at Scott's house. He wishes they were there, because they would know how to fill this silence. He also wishes Mrs. McCall weren't there, because then his dad could yell at him or make disappointed faces at him or ask him if he's okay, or all of those things, and no one would tell him he's doing a bad job parenting, which is probably what he's afraid of , which is probably why they're lying around in horrible silence.

Finally, Mrs. McCall stands and says, "I'm going to go check on the others. Call me if you need anything."

Mrs. McCall looks at Stiles's dad for a moment, her lip rolled between her teeth, and then she leans close and says, in a low enough tone that Stiles wouldn't have heard if he weren't used to straining his hearing to catch werewolf conversations, "I almost got my son killed when I found out. I reacted badly. They've done all right, they've chosen sides and done what they can." She squeezes his dad's shoulder and smiles softly at Stiles before leaving.

"You said you were going to tell me about the werewolves," his dad says.

Stiles speaks to the ceiling. "Yeah, and then you got captured by one. I'm sorry."

"You said you were going to, so do. I want the—tell me how you've—how the hell did you get mixed up in this, Stiles? And Scott? And Melissa?"

Stiles rests his arm over his eyes and begins. "Remember when you were looking for the other half of Laura's body?"

"Jesus _Christ_, Stiles," his dad breathes, maybe because that was a long time ago, maybe because of the casual way he says it, maybe because of the way his voice softens over the name Laura, like he knows her or knew her. Which he didn't and doesn't, but he knows enough about her to know that he would have liked her.

"She was a werewolf, most of the Hales were. Are. Whatever. They were born as werewolves. Nothing they could do about it. She was killed—well, she was killed because she was the alpha, like Derek is, like that—like Alice was. But Derek didn't kill her," Stiles hastens, because his dad makes a horrified noise, deep in his throat, like he's trying to say Stiles's name but can't quite get it out. "Peter killed her, because he wanted to be alpha, and that's how you become one, by killing one, and he did."

"Peter Hale, as in comatose Peter Hale, as in the Peter Hale who just—if I understand everything—came back from the dead and stole that woman's—that Peter Hale, he killed his _niece_?"

"He went crazy," Stiles confirms. "It was probably coming before the fire, but he spent all that time healing from the coma, and then his family was dead and I don't understand him killing Laura, but he did, so he could become the alpha and get revenge."

"Revenge on _whom_?"

"Anyone involved in the fire. Kate Argent, mostly, I guess. He bit Scott," Stiles clarifies, before he gets too far off track. "He bit Scott that night we went out into the woods looking for Laura's body, so he could have a beta—a follower, a pack. So that's how Scott got mixed up in this. And me, because it was my fault, about Scott."

"Scott has been a werewolf for more than a year?"

"Yeah." Stiles presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids.

"Did Kate Argent know?" his dad asks, sitting up abruptly. Stiles lifts his hands from his eyes and stares. His dad looks pained and enraged.

"About the werewolves? Yes. Yes. Her family, Allison's family, the Argents—they're hunters. It's, like, their calling in life to kill werewolves." His dad blanches, skin gone white. "Mostly," Stiles hurries, "mostly they follow what Chris calls a code, meaning they only kill wolves who kill people. But Kate and, and her dad, they were beyond crazy. Kate used Derek to get to his family, killed as many of them as she could. They hadn't done anything, you knew the Hales, didn't you? They were all right."

"They were kind," his dad says, voice soft. He swings his legs over the couch, plants his feet on the floor, rests his chin in his hands, and stares at Stiles.

"Okay, continue from Scott being bitten, and tell me everything. I won't interrupt."

So Stiles does. When he tells him how he and Allison and Derek killed Peter, his dad bites onto his lower-lip, _hard_, but he doesn't say anything.

He makes a few strangled sounds at the kanima story. When Stiles gets to Peter's resurrection he says, "Holy fuck," and Stiles nods in agreement

And then they're to the alphas running around Hale territory for nearly a half year and then disappearing, testing the waters, and then they're to Stiles getting kidnapped, and then they're there, in their living room, with a lot of history packed into the space. "So, that's the werewolves," Stiles finishes, staring at his hands again. It got hard to look at his dad around the time he skirted around what happened to him between his kidnapping and his dad's.

"That's what you were going to tell me," his dad says, tone low and odd and almost dangerous, "_before_ I was captured by an insane alpha werewolf."

"Yes," Stiles agrees, "that is what I was going to tell you."

"And now that I have been captured by an insane alpha werewolf, have watched you, you—now you are going to tell me more than that." His dad doesn't bother phrasing it as a question.

"I'm not," Stiles stutters, "I don't know how to—I really don't know what to say."

"How about start with when you started doing—when you—lightning, Stiles, and fire, and something with the ropes? How did that…how did that_happen_?"

"I," he squeezes his traitorous hands between his knees. "That's not new."

His dad's head jerks up. "What do you mean? Has that been going on, since Scott, too?"

"No, I mean, I'm like—I never knew about it until after I was kidnapped, but it's not something I asked for. It's like Derek, or Peter? I mean," he hurries, because his dad looks at him like he's not sure _who_ he's looking at, "I was born with it? With magic, I mean."

His dad lets out a long breath. "You cannot have been _born_ with magic. Your mother and I would have known. We would have had to have known."

"It's not like it manifested on its own, exactly." Stiles shifts. "Like, I think some of my problems with focusing came from it, but only some of them. It needed me to actively recognize it for it to actually, like, come out?" He winces at the way his dad's eyebrows go up. "I mean, for me to use it, I have to know it's there. Like people have the capacity to read, but until someone tells you what language is and how to do it, you're probably not going to figure it out."

"So," his dad narrows his eyes, wrinkling the gauze Mrs. McCall had taped over the cut from the alpha's claw, "that brings us back to my original question: When? And How?"

Stiles shakes his head. "You can't get angry."

"Stiles," his dad groans, "I have been—my world is entirely upside down. Do not tell me how to feel, just tell me the goddamn truth. For once." He lets out a few short breaths. "Please."

Stiles breaks. "Ms. Morrell," he answers. His dad's head jerks up.

"The school counselor?"

"Yes, her. She's involved, sort of, and so is the Dr. Deaton, the vet," his dad does not look surprised at that admission, "involved enough that they both know about werewolves, and everything. And she knows about magic, too. When I first went to see her, back when I started having nightmares, she told me about the magic. And I…it was mine? So I didn't feel like it was wrong to learn how to use it."

"And she's been teaching you?" his dad asks, voice low and tired and sharp.

"She gave me a choice. I asked her to."

"Without discussing it with me? You're still underage, Stiles. You're still—you're still a child. You're still my son."

"I'm not exactly," Stiles begins, and then trails off because his dad is staring at him like he's seen horrible things and doesn't know how to begin to deal with them. And that is true, he has, he has seen _a lot _of horrible things, but today's were new and overwhelming and his dad deserves rest, not a discussion on why it is okay that Stiles knows how to do magic, because he is not insane, because it is _his_, because he has rights and he has a reason to fight and he is involved in a war, of sorts, and yes he may be a child according to the law, but his experiences belie any attempt to categorize him as a child in this house, in this town.

"You are still my son," his dad repeats, sounding exhausted, and Stiles nods.

"Of course I am."

His dad drops his head back and stares at the ceiling in silence for a while longer, and then says, "Let's go to bed and finish this tomorrow."

Stiles thinks he knows what needs finishing, and he'd really rather never have that conversation, the one involving Derek and the way they held each other, the one involving all the words Alice said, all the ones that meant a lot of _shit_ for Stiles—that conversation is one he'd really rather never have.

But his dad doesn't wait for him to protest, just pushes himself to his feet with a wince and heads towards the door. He passes by Stiles's chair and hesitates, rubbing a hand over his head and saying, "I wish you had told me sooner, you know."

Stiles nods, staring at his hands.

"I get why you didn't," and that sounds almost like forgiveness, "I just wish you had," and that sounds like betrayal.

:::

Stiles doesn't think his dad gets any sleep. He certainly doesn't. He goes upstairs and showers, and then collapses into bed feeling as if he's run miles and miles, but his mind won't stop whirring. He pulls his cell phone from the pocket of his smoke-and-blood smelling jeans, where they're piled on the floor, ready to be washed or taken out with the trash, he hasn't quite decided yet, and glances at the screen. He has a text from each of his friends, all of them saying, _All right? _or something similar.

Derek's was the first to come through, and he reads and responds to all the others first. Then he opens the one from Derek, reads _Let me know if you want me to come over. I hope you're okay. Thank you, for doing that, for saving Peter._

Even via text the words have the stunted quality of Derek trying _really_ hard, and they make Stiles's chest ache. He reads the text over and over until his phone darkens, and then he touches the screen again and responds, _I think I have some more damage control to do with my dad before I can see you. _He sends that, and then considers sending another, but there are a lot of words he needs to say, and he doesn't know how to convey any of them through a text. Which is probably good, because he and Derek have let a lot of silence into their _whatever_, and he thinks it may be time to actually talk.

_Is he okay? _Derek responds a few minutes after Stiles sets his phone on the bedside table and tries to fall asleep.

_Not really,_ Stiles replies. _But I hope he will be._

_He'll understand now, at least._

_He'll understand, sort of._ He doesn't think that his dad will ever get the magic. Hell, having seen Alice this afternoon, driven crazy from a lack of it, having killed her with it, having felt her die, Stiles isn't sure he understands the magic. He _is_ sure that if he doesn't, then he doesn't wantto.

_Are you okay?_ Derek responds, after a long enough time that Stiles has started planning out his dad and his conversation the next day, down to the moment when his dad pulls out his gun and goes after Derek.

Stiles lets out a soft laugh. _Not really, no._

_Will you be?_

_Will you?_ Stiles replies.

_I think it's possible._

Which is, which is good. It's more hopeful than he's ever expected from Derek. And if Derek can be hopeful, then maybe Stiles can, too.

_Yeah_, he replies, and hopes Derek reads what he wants to into that. Stiles turns his phone on silent and shuts his eyes and tries to sleep. He knows he should be able to, considering that he used more magic that day than he ever has, but he keeps remembering how everything played out that afternoon, and he rolls over, grabs his computer, and spends the hours until dawn hopping around Wikipedia.

He's reading about the Decembrists when his dad taps on his door. "I made coffee," he offers through the wood. Stiles yawns and sets his laptop on the floor, then scrubs a hand through his hair and meets his dad in the hallway.

"Coffee is good," he says, by way of greeting. His dad looks more exhausted than he feels. "How're your," Stiles gestures towards his wrists, his face.

"Fine," his dad says. "I've been hurt worse."

His dad has been shot, so that's not really comforting. "They're not swollen or anything, are they?" Stiles asks through another yawn.

"No." His dad pours them both a cup of coffee and leans against the counter. He gestures for Stiles to sit at the kitchen table. Stiles makes an attempt to stand against the refrigerator, but his dad says, "Sit, Stiles," and so he does. It immediately starts feeling like an interrogation.

"Where we left off yesterday," his dad begins, after a few minutes spent silently sipping coffee, "is with this," he waves a hand, "with the magic thing."

Stiles nods.

"And I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it, because I don't get it. I know it's, you say it's a part of you, but…it terrifies me, Stiles. Yesterday you," Stiles shakes his head, jams his fist between his lips and bites on his knuckles, "you _killed_ with it, and if you can't hear me say that, Stiles, then how are you meant to keep going? You did. And she deserved it, obviously. Some people do deserve it. But you need to understand that you, not your magic, _you_ are responsible." His dad is speaking quietly, and Stiles knows he's given this lecture to deputies on the force. He remembers hearing his dad say it to his mom, once, tell her how one of the men broke down sobbing after he killed someone during an armed robbery, burst out crying when his dad said, _you, not your gun, are responsible for that man's death._

He doesn't cry. He shakes his head and says, "She deserved it, and I don't regret it," and his voice sounds hard, like he's always wanting it to sound, and that scares him.

His dad closes his eyes. "Okay," he says. "I understand _that_. But she was insane and she seemed to think, it seemed to me that the magic brought her there? Before Peter Hale somehow drew it out of her, I mean. Like she was crazy when she had it."

"Some people are crazy," Stiles says. "Some people aren't. I imagine it's the same for people with magic as for people without." He tries not to think about the way he's been feeling lately, like he's addicted to the magic, like he'll lose it if he doesn't use it daily.

"You imagine," his dad replies. "I would like to speak with Ms. Morrell, to better understand this." Stiles shakes his head, a quick jerk from side to side. "Why not?"

"Because she made me swear this was a secret. And now everyone knows."

"Then it's not a secret anymore. I won't threaten her, or anything, Stiles. She just seems to know the most, about this, and I would like to know what she does. I want to know what to expect for you. And don't you want to know that, too? If your future involves that, that insanity, wouldn't you want to know so you can prevent it?"

"I would never," Stiles starts out, but his dad shakes his head, sets his coffee on the counter and leans on his hands on the table, pressing forward.

"Don't say that, Stiles, because I know there are a lot of things you would never do, and I know that by now you have done _a lot_ of them. So don't make promises like that. They will never end well."

Stiles bites his lip and nods, even though he would neversound so thrilled about killing someone, the way Alice had.

"So this afternoon we are going over to the vet's, and he will call your counselor, and we will find out everything we can about this magic, and then you and I will discuss how you're going to go on."

"I can't just _stop_, Dad."

He's got it under his skin, now, can feel it building in the tension in his joints. Wants to let it roll out, as fire or air, but he holds it in, tightens his two-handed grip on his coffee cup and watches as his dad takes his confession in, takes in his stance.

"Yesterday you said you would."

"If Peter Hale chooses to rip it out of me, too, then I will go on living. I won't go on an angry vengeful rampage. But it's there, and I know it's there now, and I can't just ignore it."

His dad looks at him in consideration. "But you could do something different with it. Instead of creating lightning," his dad shivers, a subconscious reaction, Stiles thinks, "you could do something else. Something nicer."

"The lightning _was_ nice," Stiles protests, but he knows it isn't now. Knows it's forever tainted by what he did with it, even if she did deserve it.

His dad doesn't respond.

"So," he says. "That's the magic, on hold until you and I speak with Ms. Morrell. Agreed?"

Stiles doesn't think it much matters whether he agrees or not, obviously this is the way it's going down, but he nods anyway.

"Good," his dad grins, and it's garish and fake and Stiles feels his heart stutter because, "now, on to the matter of Derek Hale and how many incredible lies you told me about _that_."

Stiles pushes his chair back from the table, an involuntary reaction to the hard and angry expression on his dad's face.

"I really didn't," Stiles protests. "Tell lies, I mean. Aside from the werewolf thing."

"So you're not dating him, then." His dad doesn't believe the words, Stiles can tell. "When the alpha said that stuff yesterday, she wasn't talking about you. When the two of you held hands, that's just normal behavior for two 'sort of' friends?"

"We aren't dating," Stiles says. "I swear."

"Okay," his dad says, "you seem to think that will make me feel _better_, but it really, really doesn't. Because there is something there, Stiles. And I am not going to go off and shoot him, and I am obviously not going to shoot you, so you can stop looking at me like that. I just want honesty. Badly. So tell the truth, son."

Stiles rubs a hand down his face. "I don't know what the truth is."

His dad makes a frustrated noise. "Just try it."

"No, I mean—with me and Derek, I really don't know. I have no idea how I feel, and I have no idea how he feels, I just know—we—God, Dad, can I just leave it at that? _I don't know_."

"No." His dad shakes his head. "Maybe last year we could have left the question of your relationship vague, _maybe_. But not now. Now there is much too much going on and I need to know, Stiles. I hate that I need to know, because this is as uncomfortable for me as it is for you, but I need to know."

"You cannot be as uncomfortable as I am right now," Stiles mutters. "Fine. Okay. We sort of had sex a few times and then we stopped because of the age difference and the danger thing and I think, I _think_, but I'm not sure, that he thought I was going to be able to, you know, quit the supernatural thing once I get out of Beacon Hills, which is bullshit, but we never really talked about it, so I don't know. But we did stop."

"A few," his dad begins, "how many is—no, I don't need…I lied, there are actually some things you don't need to tell me." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, Stiles."

"Well, what did you expect?" he asks, because this—all of it—has been exhausting, and he is so beyond fed up with how things are playing out, and it is just not fair, that he needs to feel this way, sick and a little ashamed, about what happened with Derek, and his dad has _pushed_ this.

"I thought, maybe, I don't know, kissing?" His dad is blushing, and he rubs at his face again. "And when—you didn't even tell me that you like guys, Stiles. You never even mentioned it."

"You've been asking me about Derek for ages, though. What were you so worried about?"

"Not this." His dad waves his hands. "Definitely not _this_, not until yesterday, and even then…_sex_, Stiles?"

He is burning, bright red. "It isn't a big deal."

"It should have been," his dad says, and whoa, this is way too awkward. They have already had the talk, and it was mortifying and awful, and this is eons worse.

"Dad, it's not—it wasn't—Derek and I, we." He lets out a frustrated noise, runs his hands through his hair. "We're fine, okay?"

"You were safe?"

"Yes, God. Can we _please_ stop talking about this?"

"Do you even like him?" Apparently, no, they will not stop talking about this.

"Of course I like him. I wouldn't have…if I didn't…of course I like him."

"And does he like you?" his dad pushes. Stiles thinks about all the things Derek said, when they were sleeping together, about all the words he licked and bit into Stiles's skin. But everyone knows the first thing about fucking is that you don't actually believe anything that's said when you're having sex.

"He likes me. Or, anyway, he doesn't want me dead."

His dad shakes his head. "Christ. That's not at all the same thing, Stiles."

"I know that!" Stiles stands up. "It's just, we never really talked. About it. That much."

His dad lowers his head and looks at his feet. "He never talked? Or you never listened?"

"What, do you want me to date Derek?"

"I want you to know what the two of you meant, or didn't mean. You deserve that, Stiles."

"So you'll let me talk to him?"

"Here," his dad concedes. "And I want to talk to him, too."

"Okay," Stiles says. "Yeah, good, all right. I'll just text him, then."

"You do that."

When Stiles comes downstairs after texting Derek and getting dressed, his dad is sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his hands. He stands when Stiles comes in.

"Let's go." He jerks his head toward the door. Stiles follows.

:::

Scott is at the vet's when they arrive. He and Deaton are standing in the exam room, leaning against the table with their arms crossed, and Deaton shakes his head when Stiles and his dad come in.

"She should have told me," he says to Stiles, and Stiles's dad steps in front of him.

"And me. Someone should have told me." The words sound oddly petulant, but his dad doesn't back down.

"Letting you know before you needed to seemed like a bad idea," Deaton says. He keeps his eyes down. "We're trained in secrecy, all of us involved in this world. The secrets are easy, telling the truth becomes impossible. Give it a few months, and you'll understand. The first time you have to lie at work, you'll see why none of us told you."

"But about Stiles?"

"_I_ didn't know about Stiles. From what Scott has told me, until two days ago, only Alaina—Ms. Morrell—and Stiles himself knew about Stiles."

"You couldn't sense that I had magic?" Stiles asked, surprised. Ms. Morrell had made it seem like it was evident to everyone like them.

"I'm not that strong." He shrugs. "I'll call her, so you can get your answers," he tells Stiles's father, and Scott cuts a glance across the exam table at him.

"How's it going?" Scott asks, softly, like he expects Stiles's dad to not hear him.

Stiles shrugs, but his dad laughs. "Everything is started to make a hell of a lot more sense," he says, "and I really, I really wish you boys had come to me when all of this started."

Scott rolls his eyes. "You really would have preferred for me to come up to you like this," he wolfs out a little, sideburns growing and canines dropping, "last year, rather than having both of us hoping that you never ever had to find out?"

"Yes," his dad says, emphatic and certain, barely blinking at Scott's sudden wolfishness. "Of course I would have."

"Well," Scott glances at Stiles, bites his lip with human teeth, "you are taking this way better than my mother did."

"It's better than some of the things I thought of to explain all of your recent behavior," Stiles's dad says, and Stiles mouth goes dry, because he cannot imagine what could possibly be worse than this, than having your whole world rewritten. "Although I am still not okay with a lot of it," he adds, because Scott has started smiling.

"Of course you aren't." Ms. Morrell has appeared in the door behind him, and Stiles's dad whirls to face her.

"My son," he begins, and she lifts her hands.

"Let's take this into the office, shall we?" She nods her head toward the door at the back of the exam room. "Stiles?" She gestures for him to proceed her.

He leads the way to the office and sits down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. His dad follows him, and Ms. Morrell stands by the doorway. Scott and Deaton crowd the hallway; she leaves the door open after Deaton shoots her a glare when she moves to shut it.

"Telling you about Stiles's magical ability when you didn't know about the werewolves seemed unnecessary and messy, so I elected to keep it a secret. I understand that you're upset by that," she speaks over Stiles's dad's immediate grumbling, "but you must admit the practicality of my decision. Given what happened yesterday, perhaps keeping all of this from you was not wise, but I had hoped that you would be allowed to be left out of it entirely."

"If my family is involved, then I want to be a part of it. I do not understand how that didn't occur to all of you. I do not understand how you could all think that I would want to be in the dark on this, on something this huge."

"We thought it would be safer for you," Stiles says. "Scott and I, we just, we wanted to keep you safe."

"That is not your decision," his father says, voice low. "Ms. Morrell," he turns back to her, eyes narrowed, "yesterday I met a werewolf who was once what my son is. She lost her magic," Ms. Morrell nods, like she's heard the story, "and she was insane. Did that have to do with what she was?"

"It had to do with _who_ she was," Ms. Morrell says. She's looking at Stiles. "Magic doesn't turn a person crazy. Magic can be addicting, but it is something that we learn to deal with. If you have it, it will come out somehow—if I hadn't spoken to Stiles, he may have come to use it unexpectedly under stress or his jitteriness may have been enough to burn it off, we can't know—but now he does know how to control it. I don't think he will allow it to consume him. It is only when people do that, when they get greedy with it, when they believe they are invincible, that having magic becomes a problem."

"It's addicting," his dad repeats.

"Dad." Stiles fists his hands, keeps the buzzing under his skin. "It's not like, it's not something that will ruin my life."

"It will change it, though," Ms. Morrell says. It's like she's not even trying to help him. He glares at her. "I'm just being honest, Stiles. You decided to learn to use magic and that was a good decision, I think, but it did change the direction your life will take."

"So how do you deal with it, with the addiction?"

Ms. Morrell shakes her head. "Maybe addiction was too strong a word. You're thinking of drugs. But magic is—if you gave up speaking, Sheriff, that would be difficult, right? You would miss it, you would have trouble stopping."

"Not as much trouble as Stiles would," Scott mutters, and Stiles appreciates his attempt to lighten the mood, and his dad apparently does, too, because he favors Scott with a distracted smile.

"Right," Ms. Morrell continues, "so Stiles's magic, at this point, is a little like speaking. If he continues using it, normally, not for huge things like what he used it for yesterday, just for little things, then he will be fine. He will not suffer any negative effects. He will just be living as who he is, now. If he uses it too much—and for Stiles, _too much_ is quite an impressive amount—then we will begin to have problems. But as he is now, he'll live naturally. It's not something you need to worry about, is what I'm saying. He will not go insane."

His dad lets out a breath. "You're sure of this."

"Alan and I both have magic, and we have perfectly normal lives."

"Normal." He shakes his head. "Your idea of normal…I don't," he looks at Stiles, "you won't do that thing, with the lightning, again?"

"I don't want to go crazy. I never even really wanted to—I had to kill her, because she would have killed Peter, but I didn't _want_ to."

"Okay." His dad wipes his hands on his pants and stands. "Let's go home."

Stiles watches his dad as he drives them from the vet clinic to their house. "Do you want me to," he begins, "do you want me to act different around you?"

His dad doesn't answer him until they're back in the kitchen.

"When you say different, you mean do I want you to hide things from me?"

Stiles nods. "I can not do magic around you. I can not talk about all of this around you."

His dad punches the wall, then shakes his hand out in the air and scrubs both of his hands through his hair. "That is exactly the opposite of what I want. Don't you get what I'm trying to do here, Stiles?"

Stiles shakes his head, suddenly mute.

"I want to _understand_. That is all. I desperately want to know what is going on in your life. I am playing an immense amount of catch-up right now, and once I finally do get there, I want you to treat me like this is all normal to me, too, like it is for you and Scott and Melissa, I want you to treat me like I get it until I actually do, okay? I do not want you to keep me out of your life anymore. Even if this terrifies me." He takes a few deep breaths. "I have been losing you this last year, and I will do anything to keep that from happening. Even if I am not one hundred percent okay with everything, I will not treat you differently because of it, and I do not want you to treat me any differently, either. I know now, so let me keep knowing."

"Okay." Stiles can't think of much else to say to that. He crosses to the stairs, and pauses once he gets to them. "I never wanted to lose you, either, Dad. I just didn't, I really didn't know what to do."

"I know," his dad sighs. "I understand that."

"We're all right?" Stiles asks after a silence that stretches painfully.

"We'll be fine."

The future tense wrecks him a little.

::

Derek rings the doorbell. It is the strangest thing to go down the stairs and find him standing in front of his father, head bowed, hands in his pockets.

"In the living room," his dad says, by way of greeting.

His dad sits down on the couch and gestures for Stiles to sit beside him. Stiles does, and then stares at his hands. Derek takes the rocking chair, his feet flat on the floor, his body so still Stiles can barely see him breathe.

"So," his dad begins, and he is staring at his hands, too, and Stiles can feel the air closing in around them, in this too small, too uncomfortable sphere that they're in. "I asked my son if you like him, Derek, and he said that he thinks so, because you do not want him to die." Derek jerks his head up and stares from Stiles to his dad, eyes wide. He opens his mouth, but Stiles's dad, fuck everything, keeps talking. "I also asked him if you were dating, and he said no." Derek opens his mouth _wider_, and Stiles's dad taps a nail into the coffin, "but he did say that you had sex."

Derek straightens his back and raises his chin and Stiles's gaze jerks from his face back to the ground.

"Well, he wasn't lying." The words are impolite, but the tone is soft. Stiles can feel the heat of Derek's attention on him, and he glances up. Derek rolls his lips together, and then continues, "I do like him, I do not want him to die, if what we had were dates then I would certainly not want to date me, and we did have sex." He turns his gaze on Stiles's dad. "Which was, from your perspective, certainly a mistake."

"And from your perspective?" His dad's voice is low and dangerous.

Derek shifts, looking suddenly very uncomfortable. "I would say," he looks at his hands, "I'm really bad at people," he begins, "I'm truly awful at them. Stiles has made me a little better." He looks at him, again, and Stiles's heartbeat goes a little faster. "I would say that I should have made it clear that I didn't _just_ not want you dead, that I do like you, and yes, I should have _told _you that, and, yes, we should have waited." Stiles opens his mouth, and Derek shakes his head. "No, we should have waited because your father," who is sitting right here, Stiles wants to say, be careful you idiot, "doesn't trust me, and this conversation would be a lot easier, and it would be a lot easier to get him to accept this, if we had not had sex."

"But it wasn't a bad thing," Stiles protests, even though his dad is _right there_. He cannot let Derek call them a mistake.

"The context," Derek sighs, "is not a good thing."

"This," his dad interrupts. "What do you mean by _this_, Derek?" He sounds calmer, like maybe nothing will be ruined by this conversation.

"The two of us," he nods his head towards Stiles, "if you want it?"

This whole conversation just got far too confusing and far too much and he is in far too deep, but he cannot get out without getting through it. And he really does not want to lose Derek. And this is, it is more than he had ever expected. "Like, dating?" Stiles says, to clarify, because Derek is bad at words and meanings, and so is Stiles sometimes. Derek nods, an aborted movement. "Yeah, of course I want it."

Derek releases a breath like a sigh and Stiles's dad drops his head into his hands. "I was hoping that was how it was, but, Christ. Okay, well, there are going to be rules."

Derek and Stiles return to staring at their hands. Stiles's dad begins, "You will do nothing more than kiss until Stiles is eighteen. I would prefer that you do nothing more than kiss until you are married and I am dead, but that might be pushing my luck." Stiles picks at the skin around his thumb. Express permission to kiss Derek should not make him so damn happy. Express permission to one day sleep with Derek again _really_ should not make him happy, that's just moderately strange. "And Derek will not come over except for when I am home, and you will not go over to his placeexcept for when at least one of your friends is there, and I am not afraid to abuse my position as sheriff, but please do not make me."

"We won't," Derek promises. His voice sounds warm and weird and Stiles looks at him to find that he is smiling, a wide grin that makes him look ridiculous and Stiles wants to touch it, to feel its happiness onhis fingertips.

"And," his dad stands up, moves to the kitchen, "thank you for finally being honest with me. I understand that that must have been difficult for you," he says, mostly to Derek. He looks over at Stiles, and offers him a soft smile, which Stiles returns. "It's good to have you home, and _here_, you know."

Stiles nods, and his dad nods in response, and then he lets the door to the kitchen swing shut behind him.

Derek is looking at Stiles. "So, boyfriends?" Stiles asks.

Derek lets his head fall back and releases a soft laugh. "That was mortifying, Christ." He rubs a hand over his face. "Yeah, though. Boyfriends."

"Maybe we got all the awkwardness out of the way and it will be smooth sailing from here?"

"Don't jinx it." Derek finally crosses the room and falls beside Stiles on the couch, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pressing his lips to his ear in the lightest kiss imaginable. "Please."

::

Stiles's dad takes him to San Francisco for his eighteenth birthday. He says that this is not to do with the fact that if he had not taken Stiles away from Beacon Hills then Stiles would certainly have been getting some governmentally-sanctioned action (or, at least, some legal action) from his boyfriend that night. His dad says it's because when Stiles was seven he begged his parents to take him to San Francisco so that he could see the fog and the Golden Gate Bridge and so that he could visit Ghirardelli Square and get sick from eating too much chocolate. His dad says, "Better late than never," and Stiles knows that he cannot argue.

And besides, San Francisco is awesome, and it's nice not to have to share his dad with his job for once, so he's not actually all that upset. And this way, when he and his dad drive back into town and arrive at their house and fall into their beds, when Stiles tiredly shoves air beneath his window, pushing it open so it stays that way, he doesn't need to think about the fact that this is different from any other time he and Derek have been together. He doesn't need to think it means more, even though it does, sort of; it means they've been together, actually dating, for seven months, and it means they've been _something_ to each other for more than a year. And he doesn't need to think of how that scares him. When Derek crawls through Stiles's window and kisses his eyelids, Stiles presses his lips against his neck and lets him pull him close, but he doesn't kiss his mouth.

"Not tonight?" Derek breathes into his shoulder, and Stiles shakes his head. Because he's ready for promises, but tonight this, being tangled together like this, feels like more of a promise than sex ever has for them.

He goes over to Derek's after school the next week. Derek is getting dressed for work, buttoning his shirt and muttering about how uncomfortable it is, while Stiles sits on his bed and watches him.

"I'm afraid," Stiles says, the admission coming out too fast, too loud in the stillness of Derek's apartment, over the rustling of his clothing.

Derek turns, points to his nose, and nods, the utter bastard. "I don't get what you're afraid of, though?" he says, to make up for his stupid werewolf senses.

Stiles lets some energy out as magic, air currents weaving warm around his fingers. Derek can't see them, but he knows they're there, and he watches Stiles's hands while he waits for him to answer.

"We've never," he stops the magic, presses his hands under his thighs and looks up at Derek, "The last time we had sex I was just really fucking lonely. And incredibly angry. And I think you were too?" He waits until Derek nods. "And I don't know how to do it, when it means something more than that."

"Do you think, once we have sex again, things are going to change?" Derek asks, reaching for his vest. His voice is calm but his eyes are looking everywhere but at Stiles, and Stiles realizes that this might not sound all that good to Derek.

"No, no, I don't think—I'm just afraid that it will. I like what we are. I like...back then we were both so _angry_, and I don't want to feel that way anymore, and I'm scared that fucking will bring it back."

Derek stares at him in silence for a long moment, hands still on the top button of his vest. He finally drops his hands, nods, then leans forward and kisses Stiles's forehead. "When we have sex, when you want to, we will go slow, and if you need—we'll stop, Stiles, if you need to." He grins wryly. "We're good at that."

Stiles catches at his hand, squeezes it. "I really—I am really glad you came back to Beacon Hills, you know?"

"Even though...Peter and Scott? The pack?" Derek asks.

"What would my life be without werewolves?" Stiles drops Derek's hand. "Pretty empty, really."

Derek grins at him, wide and happy, and says, "I'll see you when I get home."

"I'll be here."

He texts his dad, although his dad is working late and so doesn't know that he isn't home anyway, tells him he's doing homework at Derek's, and then he actually does do homework. After he finishes that, he moves Derek's furniture around for a little while, leaving Derek's arm chair by the door to the bathroom to piss him off, and then he crawls into Derek's bed and waits.

Derek's already shed his vest and is halfway through unbuttoning his shirt when he gets into his bedroom. "Rough night?" he asks, jerking his head back to his reorganized living room.

"A little bored." Stiles yawns and stretches, and then pins Derek with a stare. "If we go slow and we're careful," he begins, and he doesn't get to finish, because Derek's mouth is on his, kissing him like he's been drowning and Stiles is air.

"Or not," Stiles breathes, as Derek's lips drop to his neck and he sucks, biting harsh against his skin.

"Sorry, sorry," Derek backs off, but Stiles grabs onto his belt loop and tugs until he comes back. Stiles presses his hands into his shoulders and pulls him into another deep and drowning kiss, and then Derek's hands slip under Stiles's shirt and push it up and over his head. And all Stiles feels as he shoves Derek's unbuttoned work shirt down to his wrists, where Derek works his hands to get it off, and as he undoes the button on Derek's pants, and as Derek leans into him, pressing and kissing and saying things, all Stiles feels is the rightness of _this_. He gets a desperate knot of need in his chest, and he scrabbles at his own pants as Derek pulls his all the way off, and Derek laughs at him.

He leans forward and kisses Stiles's shoulder as he tugs Stiles's boxers and pants off in one go, and then he kisses down Stiles's chest and he murmurs, "I have really missed this," to Stiles's hipbone.

Stiles wraps his fingers in Derek's hair and brings him back to his mouth, again, unable to let him go, "I don't regret it, you know?" He says, and Derek lifts his hips, drags a pillow down beneath him. "Even if it was angry, I think we needed that then."

Derek looks at him, pupils blown wide. "I never thought I'd be able to have you like this," he confesses, and Stiles watches as he takes him, slow.

:::

They don't move for a long time, and when Stiles finally shifts, sticky and content, from under Derek's long-limbed sprawl, Derek sighs into the sheets and watches as he crosses the room. "I didn't believe we'd make it, for a long time," he says. Stiles is standing in the doorway, his back to the bed, as he levitates the chair back across the living room so he can get to the bathroom.

"Why not?" Stiles asks, turning to face him again, and he knows he looks wrecked, and Derek's gaze is skating over him like it can't find a place to settle.

"It all seemed too easy, at first, you and me and our silences. And then, when we started talking about things, that seemed—dangerous. I just didn't think we'd be allowed to keep something so…simple."

Stiles nods, re-crosses the bedroom and reaches down to press a hand to Derek's chest, over his heart. If he focuses he can feel Derek's blood humming under the skin, can feel it filling and emptying the chambers of his heart. It beats under his touch. He could speed it up if he wanted to, but Derek's pulse is already racing. "Now, though? Do you think we'll make it now?" he presses.

Derek sits up and drags him back down, wrapping him between his legs and tangling him in the snaking mess they've made of the sheets. "Shut up, Stiles, you _know_."

And yeah, he kisses into Derek's mouth and he mostly does know.

**A/N:** Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!

**Warnings** related to the above: There is a vague mention of rape, but no one is raped; underage relationship/sex; some violence that would not be out-of-place in canon (I don't think); awkward conversations holy gods above.


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